SHOMA PATNAIK | NT
PANAJI: Fast-tracking industrial growth in the state is turning out to be a false promise for unit owners, who were allotted plots in a new industrial estate at Panchwadi in Ponda taluka.
Nearly two years after plots were advertised and allotted in the new industrial estate, the industrial estate has failed to take off leaving the entrepreneurs high and dry. There is zero activity in the Panchwadi industrial estate and the site is bereft of any infrastructure, according to the plot owners. The only development undertaken in the estate is construction of a water tank on which work is going on desultorily.
Plot owners said that enquires with the Goa Industrial Development Corporation (GIDC) have elicited no satisfactory response as to when work will start which means no change in the situation for the coming months on account of monsoon. “The new industrial estate is not connected to the electricity grid and has not received water connection. The approach road also has not been constructed and the industrial estate does not even have a signboard,” said a startup entrepreneur, who was allotted a plot in June 2015.
He said that a delay in commissioning the estate has resulted in his project getting stalled and “the cost going haywire.” Another hapless plot owner said, “Thanks to the absence of any development activity at the site, it is difficult to convince banks that the place is an industrial estate.”
The worst part is that the Panchawadi industrial estate does not even figure on the website of GIDC, leaving plot owners in the dark about its fate. The GIDC had advertised for plots in the Panchawadi industrial estate on May 7, 2015, after which the plots were sanctioned on June 25, 2015. The allotment letter to entrepreneurs was given in February 2016. But in September 2016, the terms of allotment were changed and new allotment letters were issued to the plot owners.
However, there was no work undertaken in terms of setting up facilities and the land remained barren and undeveloped. Panchawadi industrial estate was especially earmarked for micro and small units.
Along with the Shiroda and Carambolim industrial estates, the Panchwadi industrial estate was launched for the purpose of fast-tracking industrial growth and creating employment. A ground-level check reveals that the Shiroda and Carambolim industrial estates like Panchawadi are not much better in infrastructure work.
Plot owners at Panchawadi feel that with minimum level of work undertaken by the GIDC “it looks like 2017 will be another wasted year for us in commencing construction of our units.”