Goa govt decides to withdraw SEZ policy

The government of Goa has finally bowed down to the wishes of the people from Goa and in an open demonstration of its willingness to reject special Economic Zones(SEZs) in the state of Goa, has now decided to withdraw the Goa Special Economic Zone policy 2006, which effectively means that the government has no such policy any longer to permit the setting up of SEZs in the state of Goa.

The Chief Minster Mr Digambar Kamat, while announcing the decision taken buy the cabinet at a press conference, declined to detail the implications and the fallout of the decision. However it is believed that the move by the Goa state cabinet was aimed at pre-empting any possibility of the promoters of the SEZs from taking advantage of the existence of the policy and staging a back door entry to revive their projects which have been put on hold after the present government in Goa decided to scrap them in response to a popular agitation from Goans under different banners including the SEZ Virodhi Manch(SVM) which opposed the SEZs tooth and nail and the Goa movement against SEZs(GMAS ) another virulent opponent of the SEZs encroaching into Goa.

The state officials also informed that the denotification of the three notified SEZs in Goa is irrespective of the SEZ policy and will have no bearing. the opponents of the SEZs are however wary of the final outcome and have said that their final victory will be achieved when the three notified SEZs are finally denotified by the Union commerce ministry.

Mr Mathany Saldanha of the GMAS said that it would be interesting to see the response of the Union government to the wishes of the people of Goa who are unanimous in their resolve to oppose the SEZs in Goa. However the newly appointed President of the Goa chamber of Commerce and Industry was of the view that the government should have taken a more cautious approach towards the issue and advocated that atleast one SEZ should have been experimented and depending on its progress, the next step could have been taken by the government.

The policy for the SEZs in Goa was adopted by the state government in 2006 after the government of India notified the special economic zones act 2005.