GOA

Centre sanctions highway projects worth Rs 2,200 crore for Goa

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CM Pramod Sawant said that road projects worth Rs 2,228 crore have been sanctioned for Goa by the Union ministry for road transport and highways (MoRTH). The projects approved include a six-lane highway on stilts at Porvorim, a four-lane highway expansion from Navelim to Cuncolim, and a four-lane bypass from Mashem to Pollem in Canacona.

The Navelim to Cuncolim highway has received a sanction of Rs 361 crore, while the Mashem to Pollem bypass will be constructed at a cost of Rs 177 crore.
The Porvorim highway on stilts is a long-awaited project.

Work of highway expansion that began in late 2016 is expected to be complete from Patradevi up to Karaswada and Verna (including one lane of the new Zuari bridge) by December 2022. Only a stretch of around 3km in Porvorim remains to be expanded.

Presently, due to this pending work at Porvorim, traffic movement continues to be affected at the bottleneck between the Sangolda junction and Mall de Goa.

Cabinet OKs changesto startup, IT policies

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The state cabinet on Wednesday granted approval to amend theGoa Startup Policy 2022 and IT Policy 2018to reinstate the Seed Capital Scheme.

The amendment also provides for creating a Startup IT Promotion Cell (SITPC) to cater to the Startup Policy 2021 and IT Policy 2018.

The promotion cell will be the nodal agency to register, recognise, certify the startups. The IT secretary will be its convener, while the director (IT) and CEO (SITPC) will certify the ventures.
The cell will have to report to the empowered committee (EC). The committee will oversee policy implementation and grant approvals for the disbursement of incentives. Applications received under this policy and the IT Policy 2018 will be processed by the cell.

The approval was granted to make necessary amendments to the IT Policy 2018 for reconstitution of the empowered committee and to broaden its purview to oversee the implementation of the Startup Policy 2021.

The cabinet also granted ex post facto approval to extend the nine schemes that were defined under the Startup Policy 2017 to the Startup Policy 2021 with enhanced benefits.

Rs 1k crore to drive better quality roads across Goa

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A provision of Rs 1,000 crore has been made in the state budget to take up improvement of riding quality surface in all assembly constituencies. A total of 1,700km of road length will be resurfaced during 2023-24. Chief ministerPramod Sawantsaid on Wednesday that the target is to complete 500km at a cost of Rs 280 crore before the onset of the monsoon.
Sawant also said that the second section of the new Zuari bridge will be opened for use by December 2023 and it will be a permanent solution to the traffic issues in this section. Importantly, a provision of Rs 250 crore has been made for the Goa State Development Corporation to build the Salvador Do Mundo-Chodan bridge.

The projects will include four-laning of Ponda to Bhoma section (Rs 750 crore), four-laning of existing road fromSanjeevanisugar factory toKhandepar(Rs 600 crore), four-laning of Anmod to Mollem section (Rs 1,500 crore) and construction of foot overbridge at Fulancho Khuris, Bambolim (Rs 7 crore).

IT department to implement Chips to Startups scheme at NIT, IIT Goa

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The Union Government has approved Goas proposal to implement the Centres Chips to Start-ups (C2S) scheme at the National institute of technology Goa (NIT Goa) and Indian Institute of Technology Goa (IITGoa).

Minister for information technologyRohan Khaunte said that the scheme will be operational for five years at the two institutes.

The minister made the announcement at an event to distribute laptops to meritorious students from the SC and ST community. The announcement also comes at a time when Union minister of state for electronics and technology Rajeev Chandrasekhar is in the state for a series of meetings.

Goas GST collection for Nov up by 63%

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The grossGSTrevenue collected in Goa for the month of November shot up by 63% as against a month earlier. The tax mop-up also surpassed November 2020s GST collections by 73%, largely driven by festive purchases and revenge tourism.

The mop up includes CGST, SGST and IGST with Goa getting only the SGST component.
The Growth in the states gross GST earnings beat the national figures where GST revenues were 25% higher than the GST revenues in the same month last year and 27% over 2019-20.

In October, GST collections stood at Rs 317 crore and also above the pre-pandemic levels.
The recent trend of high GST revenues has been a result of various policy and administrative measures that have been taken in the past to improve compliance.

Green clearance fee halved for ore beneficiation plants

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Based on the ‘s advice, the Goa State Environment Impact AssessmentAuthority(Goa-SEIAA) has revised and reduced the fee to be paid for environment clearances for operating a mineral beneficiation plant. The fee has been now brought down to half of what was originally planned to be charged or less.
In the beneficiation process,iron oreis separated from the rest of the mined extract. The state government is looking to restartminingactivities in the state after they shut down followingSupreme Courtdirectives in 2018.

For more than two lakh tonne, environment clearance for the mineral beneficiation plant would cost Rs 15 lakh, but has been brought down to just Rs 7 lakh.

As per the Goa-SEIAA’s recent decision, environment clearance fee for laterite quarries has also been slightly reduced from Rs 40,000 to Rs 35,000. In the case of basalt quarries, however, the amount has been hiked from Rs 50,000 to Rs 75,000.

Up to Rs 15 lakh for Goa Inc to pursue intellectual rights

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To encourage innovation and product development, the is offering up to Rs15 lakhto Goan industries, hospitals and academic institutions topursueintellectual propertyrights(IPR). A task force will be formed to scrutinise and clear incentives under the scheme, which will remain effective till September 2022.

The scheme, called the financial incentives for certification andintellectualproperty rights reimbursement scheme, is part of the state incentives to encourage investments scheme, 2017 (umbrella scheme).

A similar scheme was notified in 2003 and 2017, but the department has amended the scheme as per changes introduced by the Centre.

The department will reimburse 100% of actual expenditure per certification up to Rs 8 lakh, while a cap of Rs 15 lakh has been fixed for IPR.

Goa govt urged to crap amendments to land development regulations

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Goyche Fudle Pilge Khatir, an organisation committed to securing safety of Goas future generations, at an awareness meeting organised by it at Margao on Saturday over the draft amendments made to the Goa Land Development and Building Construction Regulations 2010, called upon the government to scrap the draft amendments to save Goa from imminent destruction.

The organisation expressed its determination to deploy all the legitimate and constitutional means to resist this massive onslaught on Goa and called upon the people to rise up in the defense of Goa.

The revamped Goastart-uppolicy 2021 which was approved by the state cabinet has set a target to generate employment for at least 6,000 Goans. The vision of the policy is to make Goa one of the most preferred start-up destinations in India, and make it feature in the top 25 start-up destinations in Asia by 2025.

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To encourage Women to launch their own start-ups, the new policy provides special incentives to women entrepreneurs.

Tech bodies have been pushing the government to roll out the new policy ever since the existing policy lapsed in 2020.

TheGoa Startup Policy2017 lapsed in September 2020 and was given two six-month extensions as the government dragged its feet in rolling out the revamped policy. The Goa Startup Promotion Cell (SPC) began work on the new policy in the first half of 2020 by taking the learnings from the then prevailing startup policy and inputs from startups.

For the new startup policy a single round of discussions with local startups and startup ecosystem stakeholders was held, while inputs were also sought from the Centres department for promotion of and of industry and internal trade (DPIIT). Discussions between local stakeholders and the IT minister Jennifer Monserrate and chief minister Pramod Sawant, though scheduled often, were cancelled repeatedly.

The new policy aims at evangelising creation of at least 500 innovative, technology enabled products and building sustainable Services and solutions start-ups in Goa by providing requisite assistance and support in the next three years, targeting generation of EMPLOYMENT for at least 6,000 Goans.

The start-up policy also aims at developing technology and innovation hubs, centres of excellence, research and development labs and incubation centres in the next three years.
The revised policy also states that for start-ups hiring local talent, 50% salary of the freshers will be reimbursed subject to a cap of Rs 15,000 per month per recruit. Earlier, the limit was Rs 10,000.

The governments move to develop a newcurriculumfor computer education by including coding and robotics is commendable, given thatitcomes almost 10 years after the last change, said Goa IT Professionals (GITP). GITP hasurgedschools and other stakeholders to assist the government in the initiative so that students can gain skills in information and technology.

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State Council of Educational Research and Training (SCERT) Goa has developed a new curriculum for computer Education under the CARES (Coding and Robotics Education in Schools) scheme and has decided to involve teachers in preparing the content.
GITP said that Goa lags behind in computer and information technology because of which Goan students are unable to enhance their capabilities and skills.