‘Include time-bound delivery of services in Startup Policy’

NT NETWORK

Panaji

With the government planning to announce the Goa Startup Policy 2021 shortly, the Goa IT Professional (GITP), an IT body, has asked for time-bound delivery of services to be included in the new policy.

The GITP said that the new policy must contain clear deadlines for various services such as startup registration, scheme application processing, clarifications among others. 

Further, it must have clarity on practical implementation like definition of a ‘fresher’ for graduate versus masters level education, qualifying employment tenures etc.

The policy must also proactively approach startups in other parts of India and the world and bring them to the state, said GITP in a suggestion letter submitted to the department of information technology (DoIT). 

“All targets 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 units granted seed funding, etc,” says the letter. 

“Kindly note that the policy will not be admired for the number of schemes it promises but by the outcome of the schemes quantified by the service level agreements (SLAs) and performance indicators,” it says.  

The existing startup policy that is on an extension is due to end on March 27, 2021. The GITP has pointed out that in future, no policy must lapse unless superseded by a new policy.

“The implementation procedures for the 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 underutilised staff available within DoIT,” says the strongly worded memorandum to the government. 

Events organised by DoIT, related to the policy must be focussed on promoting culture of innovation and entrepreneurship among locals in Goa and projecting the state as the new cool destination for startups from India and abroad, said GITP.

“These events must not be wasteful like those of recent past (like champagne parties, glitzy celebrations, MOUs with no outcomes) but rather should be productive like hackathons, business plan competitions, technical conferences etc.” The expenditure incurred on events, consultants and other external entities within the scope of this policy must be made public via the IT startup website, suggested GITP.