Goa can be incubation centre for India: Prabhu

PANAJI: Taking note of the limited availability of land, Union minister for commerce and industry Suresh Prabhu on Sunday said Goa was an ideal state to encourage innovation and incubation in the Information and Technology (IT) sector.
Providing startups with the resources required to innovate and develop products not just for India, but the world would help create employment opportunities in the state without over-utilizing the scarce land available.

Prabhu met state IT minister Rohan Khaunte on Sunday to deliberate on Goa's IT and startup policies. Exactly a year ago, the then chief minister Laxmikant Parsekar had released the state's IT investment policy.

"Startup is one area where you start doing something new and different which can be scaled up to any level," Prabhu said, adding, "The ideas can be born here but they can be replicated anywhere in the country and world. To make this happen, Goa is the right place. For a new idea, you need incubation centres and I would call Goa an incubation state."

During the meeting, Prabhu and Khaunte discussed ways to create synergy between programmes run by the department of industrial policy and promotion and programmes run by the state IT department.

"This collaboration aims to explore how the resources from Start-up India and Invest India initiatives can be leveraged to attract companies and investments to Goa's IT sector and achieve our ultimate goal of making Goa a startup and IT hub," Khaunte said.

Prabhu said a team from NASSCOM (National Association of Software and Services Companies) would visit Goa in the coming months to assist the government in implementing the IT and startup policies.