Making a killing in Goa

GIDC’s cover-ups

It is amazing how Goa’s various rungs of the Mafiosi work in the twilight zone and also the power they wield.
Last week I acquainted you with two covert operatives who operate with impunity within the Goa Industrial Development Corporation. One is a field officer based at the Verna Industrial Estate –I called him Agent ‘S,’ the other is a deputy general manager at GIDC’s headquarters in Panjim. Call him Agent ‘B.’ The two influential operatives own utility buildings within the Verna estate. One is located behind the Chikitsa Hospital and obviously you won’t find their names on the building documents. They own another building at the entrance of the estate. Agent B is married to the sister of an influential ex-MLA who lost his kurchi in the last Assembly election. Between the two Agents they own 20 plots at the Verna estate and a plot or plots possibly at every major industrial estate, certainly at the Kundaim, Pilerne, Sancoale and Madkaim estates which makes tracking them rather difficult, but fairly easy when it comes to ferreting out information from sources on various floors of the IDC building. Because when you rake in the kind of moolah these guys make, you tend to make enemies as well. For the record, there are 20 industrial estates. I am told if I look hard enough, I might find Agent B’s mother’s name mentioned in the documents of some of the plots he owns. And by the way, the two have a cosy partnership agreement working for them in the names of their parents, which means as stakeholders they are also shareholders.

The Food Chain

Contrary to popular belief, an industry’s minister does not rake in as much as say a GIDC chairman, because GIDC is a niche market for Agent S & B who are both so adept and accomplished in plot selling, that they are much sought after. By this yardstick, a company calling itself Meher Developments might be a front for Babu Kavlekar. This issue has been raised in the Assembly by Manohar Parrikar. It owns a plot at Verna. Thus the food chain at GIDC is restricted to a few, and it seems implausible but not impossible I am told, that Agents S and B have frequently done in their superiors when it comes to sharing the loot. You will be surprised, I was, that when land for SEZs was being parceled out in a hurry to meet Kamal Nath’s deadline of 150 SEZs, much of the money, for instance, did not reach the main honcho at GIDC. One SEZ I am informed, came through the back door invited by the scion of a political bigwig now in the dusk of his long career mostly as chief minister. The ex-CM’s son and the son of a SEZ promoter studied together in the US of A and the former invited the promoter into his parlour, so to speak. The rest as they says is history. So really, not every industry minister makes a whack, he is sometimes called on to wait till election time, and part of this expense is paid for then.

Agent B + Agent S = Plot

It works like this. At the much wanted (vaunted?) Verna estate, IDC’s official rate is Rs 750 per M2. Unofficially, this has gone up to a band of Rs 1750-3000 depending on the location of the plot and its access to link roads. As a result, entrepreneurs who refused to part with slush money, were awarded plots in remote areas of the Verna estate. An equipment dealer with the name of a popular Hindu god paid Rs 3000 per M2 for his plot. I can’t reveal the size of the plot to feed you more masala, because that would reveal the name of the entrepreneur. This forces entrepreneurs like him to turn brokers, so they can at least recover or recoup some of their losses. So, when a logistics company rhyming with the name some of you would pronounce Ghanti, approached the owner of a company with a name that sounds like it rises at the crack of dawn, the latter simply pointed the former in Agent B’s direction. Within the boundary walls of Goa’s industrial estates and some don’t even have boundary walls, this is known as chain marketing. Nice touch. The ex-MLA with more than a family relationship with Agent B sold his highway side plot for Rs 10,000 per M2.

Which is why, some entrepreneurs possibly hang on for dear life to their unutilized plots. A Bangalore company bought two plots each of 10,000 M2 size at the Verna estate nearly five years ago. It has till date utilized only one plot. Which is why, GIDC is rubbing its hands in glee at the appetizing thought of all that SEZ land falling into its sticky fingers once the promoters are returned the money they officially invested. But that might take long, because there is this little question of how the unofficial money will be returned, if at all it is to be returned.

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