PANAJI: Goa may not see any polluting industries as the draft Goa Industrial Growth and Investment Promotion Policy, 2022, has laid thrust on promoting non-polluting sectors like eco-tourism, adventure tourism, entertainment, food processing, education and research and development, among others.
The draft policy has focused on excluding projects in areas such as khazan lands, low-lying paddy fields, sloped lands and lands falling under the CRZ, as per the environment management plan.
The draft policy is focused on ease of doing business, infrastructure enablers, logistics, industry enablers, GIDC reforms and incentives.
The objective of the policy includes supporting local and existing businesses as well as attracting new investment in the state, creating enabling environment for skill development for local youth to enhance employability, ease of doing business and strengthening the single window system — 100% online and time-bound service delivery with well-defined grievance redressal mechanism in place.
The policy is open to all sectors and types of investments in the state, with special emphasis on sectors where Production-Linked Incentive (PLI) schemes are available.
“Thrust areas to include low to nil polluting sectors such as eco-tourism, adventure tourism, entertainment, food processing, education and R&D and other white and green categories,” the draft policy said. “Current focus sectors are no longer relevant and need to be re-evaluated to align with state goals and challenges.”
It prohibits industries as per the central policies and also certain red category ones.
“Other state policies to be consulted for best practices. Other policies of the state of Goa also to be consulted for incentives and other provisions to ensure a coherent policy framework at the state level, such as telecom policy, EV policy, startup policy, umbrella scheme, etc,” the draft policy said.
As far as ease of doing business is concerned, the document stated that sanad conversions are to be given concurrently in certain zone change cases against payment of fee and premium.
“When Investment Promotion Area is declared, sanad conversion to be given concurrently through the planning, development and construction committee (PDCC) of the IPB. In other cases, where zone change is done to industrial use, sanad conversion to be issued in parallel by the SLAO, GIDC. Zones as per RP 2021 will be identified where sanad conversion will be deemed approved if zone change is approved,” the draft policy said.
The draft policy said that in certain zones such as orchards, agriculture land, provision for clearances based on self-declaration to be implemented if area of construction is less than 10% and it fulfils other criteria such as nature of project and pollution category.
“As per Land Use Regulation if zone change is not required, other departments may also consider cases wherein deemed approvals may be given on the basis of self-declaration,” draft policy said.
It also highlights the need for capacity building within state departments to provide end-to-end online service delivery along with necessary office infrastructure upgrade and training.