Panaji: A digital platform built by the Goa Industrial Development Corporation (GIDC) to streamline industrial land governance has caught the attention of the country’s nodal agency for industrial corridor development, with the National Industrial Corridor Development Corporation (NICDC) now seeking to deploy it across industrial ecosystems in the country.The NICDC has approached Goa-IDC to formalise the collaboration through a memorandum of understanding, under which Goa-IDC’s OPEN portal stack would be adapted and expanded for deployment across India’s industrial corridors and smart cities.The proposed framework aims to bring standardised, interoperable digital infrastructure to industrial land governance systems across multiple states.Central to the proposed agreement is a firm commitment to keeping the platform open. The MoU stipulates that the OPEN portal must remain open-source, freely accessible and available.“The platform shall not be commercialised, monetised, or subjected to access barriers. Any sharing or usage of the platform, including by govt entities or implementation partners, shall remain consistent with the principles of openness, accessibility and non-commercialisation,” said an internal note moved by the GIDC.The GIDC’s role as the originating developer of the platform will also be formally acknowledged in all deployments.The GIDC launched the OPEN platform in 2024 as part of a complete revamp of the corporation’s digital services and e-governance platform.The draft MoU, which defines the roles and responsibilities of both organisations, was placed before the GIDC board for approval.The NICDC, which works with state govts to develop industrial smart cities and corridors across India, has made the promotion of standardised and interoperable digital solutions a cornerstone of its mandate.Once the MoU is inked, the OPEN portal could become the backbone of industrial land governance across some of India’s most ambitious infrastructure projects.
