PANAJI
The meeting was chaired by Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar and was attended by IPB’s chief executive officer (CEO) Ashton Godinho and all its board members. Sources revealed that Tourism Minister Manohar Ajgaonkar and Revenue and Information Technology (IT) Minister Rohan Khaunte also attended the meeting.
Speaking after the meeting, Godinho said, “The IPB was recently reconstituted, as new members have come on board. The meeting was more to familiarise them with IPB’s functioning. Representatives of KPMG, which is the satellite consultant to IPB, were also present during the meeting.”
KPMG has been entrusted with the responsibility of validating and examining the projects submitted to IPB for approval. Godinho further said, “We also reviewed the projects already approved by the Board. Our plan is now to have a more system-driven approach, and KPMG’s appointment as a satellite consultant for validating projects is an effort in that direction.”
After getting re-constituted in May, IPB has roped in prominent industrialists as its board members, which include Atrey Sawant (business head, Aterya Engineering Works Ltd), Ernest Dias (chief operating officer, Sita Travels and TCI), Yatin Kakodkar (co-founder, Apex Packing Products), Girish Bharne (centre head, Persistent Systems), Rajkumar Kamat (promoter, EP Kamat Group) and Shekhar Sardessai (‎chairman, Kineco Kaman Composites India).
Speaking about the meeting, Ernest Dias said, “As new members have come on board, this meeting was more of an introduction to how the IPB functions and operates.”
IPB came into existence in 2014 and it had 14 board meetings under the previous state government. In all those board meetings, put together, the board had given its in-principle approval to 149 projects, which are aimed at bringing Rs 11,612 crore worth of investment into the state that will inturn create 25,492 jobs.
Some of these approved projects were reviewed during Tuesday’s meeting. Godinho also said that the review process of the approved projects will continue in future as well.
