A Critical Look At Business Development Problems

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A Critical Look At Business Development

Problems in Goa.

Alexson Fernandes

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Goas industrial scene has been stagnant for some

time now, so much so that its not managed to

attract new investors or diversify. This can

attributed firstly to the government reforms that

constraint itself from growing, however this is an

internal problems that can be controlled to an

extent. What needs to be looked upon as a major

threat is worldwide recessionary trends that has

been a major fallout the emerging economic

decline to this state.

It has been known that although recession has hit

India and Goa in particular, manufacturing has

been affected worldwide, owing to changes in oil,

steel, labour and governmental fluctuations. This


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has brought about a bad investment climate in Goa

in terms of new business coming in, there is also a

misconception thats making rounds among thebusiness lobbyist that goan people oppose

everthing got to with setting up industries which is

most unlikely in other states.

There are many in Goa, particularly, the

industrialists and the bodies lobbying for industry

and trade, who attribute the gloomy industrial

situation to the growing activism, which has not

spared mega-projects like Special Economic Zones

(SEZ) and mining. Agitation against the SEZ insome places showed signs of intermittent violence.

Several mega-housing projects have also been

grounded by villagers in different parts of the

State.

The blame in turn points to the prevailing

government for its failure to dispel the many

misconception among the public, well one could


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also argue over the fact that people are not

opposed to everything, what they oppose is

massive industrialization at one go and that toowith complete disregard to supporting

infrastructure availability and lack of sensitivity to

demographic impact.

There is no denying the fact that the biggest

problem in Goa today is land availability. Goa is a

tiny State with not much land to spare. Nearly 40

lakh square metres of land is today locked into SEZ

projects which are freezed. With this, Goa

Industries Development Corporation, Stateindustry promotion body, is in no position to allot

land in prime industrial estates.

According to many in the industry, the

Government has failed to market Goa aggressively

unlike destinations like, say, Gujarat and Chennai.

With the demise of tax-related incentives regime,

Goas USP suffered in comparison to North Eastern


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extraneous considerations. Employment for the

locals was never made an issue. The seeds of

todays socio-economic stress, emerging out of theunprecedented inward migration, were sown in this

unplanned industrialization.

As for the water demand, as per conventional

norms, an average requirement of 45000 litres per

hectare per day for industrial use has been

assumed. The actual demand for the year 2001

was 58 MLD. Based on the above assumptions and

norms, it has been estimated that the unrestrictedindustrial demand for the year 2011 is expected to

go up to 200 MLD. It advocated a public-private-

partnership to prop up the infrastructure and

utilities.

Gone are the days when this tourist paradise

doubled up as an equally enchanting industrial tax-


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holiday hunters paradise. Today it is not. The

Government of the day needs to convince people

of its noble intensions before it charts out toconvince the investors that it means business.

There is no denying the fact that Goa at this

juncture needs industry which would be revenue-

generating for the State, eco-friendly to synergize

with tourism, less-land consuming and at the same

time one which caters to the job needs of the local

youth.


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The environmental issues associated with

urbanization

Rapid urbanization is another issue which has

generated a lot of controversy in Goa because of

the large scale land conversions, lack of urban

amenities like sewage disposal systems, slums,

health problems, pollution, congestion, traffic

bottlenecks etc.

Business development and its impact on

land

The sight of agricultural lands being destroyed for

commercial purposes and construction of concrete

structures is quite rampant in the state. About

one-third of the total land in Goa falls under forest

areas and yields substantial profits. In recent


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years, however, the pace of degradation has

almost doubled due to short-term planning, public

indifference, industrialization and rampanturbanization. One of the other major reasons

affecting agricultural lands in Goa is mining. The

after effect of mining is siltation on agricultural

lands thus rendering them useless. There are cases

of mining siltation accumulating on agricultural

lands at Mayem village in Bicholim taluka for as

much as five metres high.

Industrialization and its impact.

Industrialization in Goa acclerated after the entry

of Ciba-Geigys santa Monica plant ( now

Syngenta) , Birla industries Zuari fertilizer plant,

and the Madras Rubber factorys moulded Rubber

tyre manufacturing unit in the 70s. Many of these

estates are located in precious watersheds and cap


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huge groundwater aquifers. This has resulted in

the depletion and pollution of the water resources.

The public opinion over polluting industry is sostrong in Goa that the politicians dont fail to

assure that they would admit only non-polluting

industries in Goa. There have been a number of

controversies over power and water guzzling units

such as steel furnaces and metallurgical industries.

The people near Cuncolim industrial estate are

agitated over the metal recycling factories. There

are specific environmental issues near every

industrial estate. None of the industrial estates

have modern common effluent treatment plants.

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A Critical Look At Business Development Problems