Land kept aside for locals at industrial estate

PANAJI:Around one lakh square-metres of land in the new industrial estate at Betul willbe reserved for "gallas" or spaces where small Goan entrepreneurs can run theirbusinesses, Chandrakant (Babu) Kawlekar, chairman of the Goa IndustrialDevelopment Corporation told TOI on Saturday.Kawlekar said the onelakh square-metres of land has been blocked to form a mini-industrial estate,where, in the first phase, 64 "gallas" or stalls, each ranging from 25square-metres to 50 square-metres will be arranged for the exclusive use ofsmall Goan entrepreneurs. "GIDC will build up the infrastructure in thismini-industrial estate and encourage 100% Goan entrepreneurs to set up theirbusinesses there. Depending on the response and demand, we will expand themini-industrial estate upto four phases," Kawlekar said. Kawlekarsaid the mini-industrial estate would help reduce the unemployment in his Quepemconstituency, where he said there are about 10,000 educated, unemployed youth."Ninety percent of the people who come to visit me are unemployed. We can't givegovernment jobs to all. If the industrial estate helps to give employment toeven 2000 persons, it will reduce the burden a good deal," Kawlekarsaid.The GIDC chairman also allayed fears over an influx of"outsiders" into Quepem due to the Betul industrial estate. He said "outsiders"only come where there are steel units. "In all my five years as chairman of theGIDC, I have never allowed any steel or polluting units in Goa. And I will notdo so in the future," he said.But Betul in his home constituency isclearly posing a challenge for Kawlekar, where after acquiring land for anindustrial estate, some factions are now spreading propaganda that it will bring"outsiders" into Quepem. Kawlekar said it is a barren plateau where nothing grewand nothing will ever grow. People staged many unsuccessful agitations to stopthe fish-drying and the bauxite mining that was going there. When the land wasacquired by the government, both these activities stopped.Kawlekarsaid in all his three elections, his manifesto promised that he would bring anindustrial estate on the plateau. So when he became the GIDC chairman, hestarted the land acquisition process which was backed by a Gram Sabharesolution. After all this, "some people and NGOs" then raised doubts over theavailability of water and electricity at Betul. Kawlekar said,"Respecting these sentiments, we laid an independent water pipeline fromSalaulim to Betul at a cost of Rs 12crore. We also got underground electricitycable from Xeldem to create a full-fledged sub-station at a cost of Rs 14crore.It also took care of the village panchayat area. Best of all, we did it throughcentral government funds without putting any burden on the state government orthe GIDC."Having complied with these basic infrastructural needs,the government, and Kawlekar, are now facing a new challenge. The new worry fromsome people and NGOs is the influx of "outsiders." "That is a wrong notion. Inall the non-polluting pharma and IT industries in Verna which were okayed by me,almost 80% employees are Goans. We should not oppose for the sake of opposing.Or else, indirectly we are pushing our youth out of Goa for jobs," Kawlekarsaid.