Promising faster clearances and single-window application processing, the state industries minister Mauvin Godinho unveiled on Thursday the draft document of ‘Goa Industrial Growth and Investment Promotion Policy’ to entice more industries to the coastal state.
Godinho said that the draft policy was aimed at expediting permissions and official clearances, so that entrepreneurs keen on setting up businesses in Goa were not made to stall their plans because of red tape. “We have also focused on ease of doing business, land-related reforms, incentives for existing and new businesses and other provisions,” Godinho said.
According to the industries minister, the policy would not only help attract new industries to Goa, but also help in hassle-free expansion of the state’s existing ones. “It is also aimed at encouraging and helping new industries to come in a big way,” the minister said.
He said that the existing land bank—parcels of land available for industrial activity—would be made public as a measure of transparency. “Now there will be transparency in allotment of land…It is simplified now. (The) Government and IDC are going to work in tandem,” Godinho said.
“It (the policy) simply says that whoever wants to set up industry in Goa, it is going to be time bound. Earlier it used to consume a lot of time (for documentation). Even the process of issuing permissions on declaration is what we are trying to do. Maximum time for bigger units will be three months and (for) smaller units two months only,” he said.
According to the draft policy, promoters of industries would now have to process just one comprehensive document, a 'common application form', which would then be cleared by all the governmental departments concerned, instead of making prospective promoters to queue up at various departments for licensing and clearances.
“Similarly for land conversion, we are going to empower ‘Investment Promotion Board’ itself for change of land use. This way it will cut down time taken for various processes,” Godinho said, who explained that the board would be the state’s special-purpose vehicle formed to attract new industries to the state.