PANAJI
Goa Technology Association (GTA), on Monday, organized a direct dialogue with Chief Minister Pramod Sawant to brief him about the current challenges faced by the industry and seek solutions. The session conducted by the founder president of GTA, Mangirish Salelkar covered the IT operations amid the challenges of ensuring the continuity of operations despite the revenue loss, pandemic related SOPs, travel restrictions, challenges with electricity and internet connectivity.
Calling the IT professionals frontline warriors, the CM lauded their contribution during the tough times, of not only saving jobs but providing employment to the Goans. Mentioning that the IT sector is flourishing with opportunities, Sawant informed, “The Goa government is in talks with the Central government to get the Bharat Broadband network project implemented in Goa which will help cover rural areas and solve the connectivity issue.”
While the industry, in general, is not happy about the internet and power connectivity in Goa, the recent cyclone made things worse wherein the companies and professionals were disconnected for up to a week.
“The cyclone was a one-off event and it is not always possible to plan for such unplanned disruption of that scale in the current situation,” argued Sawant, adding that the power was restored within a couple of days.
Bharat Broadband Network project will solve the connectivity issue according to the CM who suggested that the private players should take accountability for ensuring uninterrupted connectivity. However, plans for underground cabling remained unanswered.
“While few benefits have been rolled out under the start-up policy, IT companies have remained without any benefits so far but the CM promised us that the policy benefits will be approved to all certified companies in August this year,” stated GTA founder president Mangirish Salelkar.
There was discussion on why only 14 IT companies have registered with DoIT and felt the need to review the policy so that more companies could take the benefits. Industry stakeholders argued that while the IT policy of Goa is good, there is a huge gap in how it is designed and coded on the website for companies to apply for certification and benefits.
“While this is the key reason for the delay, hopefully, this change would be sanctioned and the process simplified,” felt Salelkar. “The pending disbursements for start-ups will also be approved by next month,” assured CM.
The discussions also focussed on the availability of qualified and trained people in the State to employ. The industry pointed out that the Goan students want to move out of Goa or not many want to do technical or coding related jobs.
“This will force us to start hiring from out of Goa or even move out of Goa where we can find the right kind of resources. This is also not a good parameter when the government wants to attract new companies to start operations in Goa,” pointed the industry.
There is a drop-in admission for technical courses and seats are vacant in the engineering courses. The recent initiatives on career counselling by the Department of Technical Education and the introduction of programming and robotics at the school level will help create interest in the next generation and ensure strong and innovative workforce availability, the CM assumed.
