Friday, March 19, 2021

Goa IT Professionals seek changes in DoIT's Startup policy

 Prakash Kamat

Panaji,March 18-- GITP, body of IT professionals from Goa have written to Department of Information and Technology(DoIT) insisting on certain changes in the startup policy:

1. Policy implementation must be strictly against reasonable SLAs for its different aspects (viz. startup registration, scheme application processing, clarifications etc.) and a clear escalation mechanism to ensure time-bound delivery of support to the startups unlike that witnessed with the current policy and its schemes.

2. Policy related schemes must have detailed clarity on practical implementation aspects viz. definition of "Fresher" for graduate vs masters level education, qualifying employment tenures, salary for employees vs management etc.

3. SPC should proactively approach startups in other parts of India and the world to bring them to Goa.

4. All targets stated in the policy and the key performance indicators should be published on the website in real time. These should include:
Number of registered startups
Scheme reimbursements disbursal track record
Number of locals employed
Number of startups granted Seed Funding, current stage stats and funding disbursal track record
Number of startups outside Goa that have been contacted for setting up a unit
Number of national and international Patents filed by registered startups
etc.
Kindly note that DOIT will not be admired for the number of policies it announces but by the outcome of those policies quantified by the SLAs and Performance Indicators  

5. The policy should not lapse unless superseded by a new policy.

6. Implementation procedures for the policy's schemes must be designed for dummies so that precious public funds are not wasted on exorbitant consultants like seen so far but rather can be done by the large under-utilized staff available within DoIT.

7. Events organized by DoIT related to this policy must be focused on promoting: (a) Culture of innovation and entrepreneurship among locals in Goa, and (b) Goa as the new cool destination for startups from India and abroad. These events must NOT be wasteful like those of recent past (viz. champagne parties, glitzy celebrations, MOUs with no outcomes) but rather should be productive like hackathons, business plan competitions, technical conferences etc.

8. Expenditure incurred on events, consultants and other external entities within the scope of this policy must be made public via the SPC website.(eom)

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