india

Updated: Sep 11, 2019 13:11 IST

The chief officer of Goa’s Investment promotion board, Vishal Prakash, has put in his papers blaming ‘the same red-tapism that businesses complain about’ for his decision.

Ironically, the investment promotion board, the brainchild of former chief minister Manohar Parrikar, was set up to bypass red tapism and help the state improve its ‘ease of doing business’ ranking.

“I believed that my expertise and skill-sets would bring about a change in the functioning of Goa-IPB which is the showcase organisation for anyone looking to invest in Goa. However, that’s not been the case and I have been bogged down by the same red-tapism that business complain about,” Prakash said in his letter to the chief minister.

“I genuinely believed that Goa was taking the lead in attracting talent from the private sector and that freshness of thoughts and working styles could transform the below par image of the state from an investors perspective,” Prakash said.

Prakash, an investment banker from Mumbai was brought in to head the investment promotion board in Goa. Prakash earlier worked for JP Morgan and Standard Chartered, and was being paid a monthly salary of ₹2 lakh.

He also complained that the government has failed to clear his dues since January.

Ever since the new government took charge in 2017, the investment promotion board, whose brief was to recommend and approve investment projects in Goa, has been meeting sparingly and no new projects were considered by the board. The board also came under fire from green activists who accused it of being a tool to bypass statutory and environmental clearances.