the goan I network
PANAJI
Desperate to overcome the burden of the huge Rs 150 crore loan the Goa Industrial Development Corporation availed to pay off the promoters of the Special Economic Zone (SEZ) and take back possession of the land allotted to them, the State administration is looking for more financially prudent ways to monetize the huge land bank.
Chief Minister Pramod Sawant on Saturday said, the land will be made available to industry, including Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs), indicating that the government may not after all go ahead with the plans of Industries Minister Visjwajit Rane to throw the entire bank of 38.4 lakh square meters located in various regions of Goa under the hammer through the public auction route.
The industries ministry headed by Rane, it may be recalled, had moved a proposal to auction again the re-possessed SEZ land, but the government referred the file to the office of the Advocate General Devidas Pangam.
On Friday, at a seminar conducted by the Federation of Small Scale Industries of India which he
inaugurated, Sawant said: “The SEZ land will now be available for MSMEs and industries as we have taken repossession of it.”
The saga of the SEZ land dates back to 2006-07 when the then Pratapsing Rane-led government allotted massive tracts of land to some seven SEZ promoter companies following the Centre’s push to promote setting up of the economic zones as an engine of growth.
A massive agitation took shape in Goa following the decision of the government with former chief minister the late Manohar Parrikar, then the Opposition Leader spearheading it, on the premise that these SEZs would trigger massive import of outstation workforce which would lead to a demographic disaster for the State.
Subsequently, current Opposition Leader Digamber Kamat, who took over as Chief Minister following the 2007 assembly elections through a cabinet decision scrapped all the SEZs in Goa and denotified them.
The decision was challenged in the Bombay High Court at Goa which however upheld the Kamat government’s decision and also held the allotment of land to the SEZ promoter companies illegal. Following directions in the Bombay High Court order, the then State government also registered an FIR under the anti-corruption laws naming polictions includeing Rane Senior, the then Industries Minister Luizinho Faleiro and some bureaucrats.
Subsequently, during the proceedings in the Supreme Court where the matter was eventually challenged by the SEZ promoter companies, the Apex Court gave its nod for negotiations to come up with an out of court agreement by which the State government throught GIDC would take re-possession of the land and compensate the companies for the payments they made at the time of taking possession when it was allotted.
However, GIDC was cash-strapped when the time came to execute the transfer of land back to it and was authorized by the Parrikar cabinet in 2018 to borrow from the banking system over Rs 150 crores.
The loan availed by the GIDC from the Oriental Bank of Commerce, is now proving to be a burden the State-owned corporation is financially wilting under forcing the government to look at diverse options on how to re-monetize the SEZ land and earn the best price.
