The immediate resignation of Investment Promotion Board (IPB) CEO Vishal Prakash has cast a shadow on the industrial projection of the State government. The CEO has only echoed the popular industry sentiment that despite all the flowery talk which successive government dispensations have undertaken since inception of IPB in 2014, very little has changed on the ground.
And like the CEO, Goans were made to believe that a serious effort is being made by the government to lure big industries and change the economics of the state. Prakash mentioned in his letter that he continued to be bogged down by the same red-tapism that businesses complained about. And there are reasons to believe this going by the track record of IPB.
Since the end of 2014, it’s been close to five years and only 56 projects have been implemented out of the 179 that have been given in-principle approval. The fact that it has taken close to five years for a mere 31% projects to get operational, paints a grim picture of the State as an investment destination. The implementation of another 31 projects continues to be work-in-progress while another 42 projects have been held up due to pending approval from one or more government departments.
Interestingly, most of these 42 projects were approved during the tenure of Laxmikant Parsekar as chief minister who was also the chairman of IPB at that time. This, again, means that these projects are stuck for around two-and-half years, which is terribly a long time to keep prospective industries waiting. That’s not all. The in-principle approval for another 24 projects was revoked because of one of the two reasons. One, the projects were falling under coastal regulation zone (CRZ) land. Two, the investor was misutilising the approval granted for the project. A lack of vision is on display here because it was the government’s duty to thoroughly study the proposal before giving the in-principle approval.
With such a track-record, all the government’s talk of changing the mindset from job-seekers to job-creators falls flat for the simple reason that all of it has been sheer rhetoric. With a grim employment scenario, the government by all means should have considered this as a serious priority. Doing lip service to jobs and giving Goans false assurances are certainly bound to backfire at some point of time.
To add insult to injury, the CEO is not paid his dues since January 2019. While on one hand we speak about transformation and freshness of thought, but on the other we show a crude and unprofessional side. The IPB website itself speaks about commitment in providing a hassle-free experience, single-window system and facilitation board to its investors to encourage growth of industries.
The government cannot pay lip service and merely announce in-principle approval for projects and create an illusion of jobs that are going to be created. The picture on the ground is far from reality and the resignation of the CEO should be a
wake-up call.
