IT Industry in Goa

Since Goa will soon become my second place of residence, I have been reading up a lot about Goa these days. Today my curiosity led me to the official website of the Government of Goa (http://goagovt.nic.in).

The order of links on the left hand side of the welcome page caught my attention. Why is the link to Information Technology placed ahead of the link to Tourism ?

Given that Goa is trying to catch-up with other IT-investment-hungry states, may be it reflects the strong desire of state government to turn Goa into the next high profile IT-destination.
If you drill down into the IT-related links, you will find out that the state government has instituted a variety of committees and has chalked out a number of grassroot level programs (MahitiGhar and ShikshaNET) to make the state IT-enabled. The orders and circulars section and the final draft of IT Policy on the website make an interesting read. I sincerely hope Goa does a good job of IT ! All the best, Goa !

However, the media seems to be maintaining a mysterious silence around this initiative. The only time it highlights Goa is at the time of New Year by coming up with a supplement on Goa beaches and the celebrities planning to visit Goa. It perhaps is more interested in the political turmoil, Page 3 parties and tourism related happenings in Goa. A Google search on this initiative, pointed me to an old 1999 article published by Rediff.

Also, I haven't yet heard of plans by any IT big-wig to set up their development centres in Goa.

So today, I casually asked one of the trainees from Goa on why well-known software companies shy away from opening their development centres in Goa. Pat came the reply - Probably they don't want to come to the sea-shore and lose their offshore advantage !