Lease Rental Rebate Scheme for Goan Diaspora

What is the Lease Rental Rebate Scheme for Goan Diaspora?

Lease Rental Rebate Scheme for Goan Diaspora, 2018 is an incentive scheme of the Department of Information Technology, Electronics and Communications, Government of Goa. It was framed in pursuance of clause 6.2.12.a of the Goa Information Technology Policy 2018, notified on 18 July 2018, and published in the Official Gazette, Series I No. 21, on 23 August 2018 under Notification No. 2(12)/DOIT/2018/Goan Diaspora/749.

The policy's stated ambition is to make Goa an aspirational geographical and human resource base for IT units and a preferred destination for their investment and expansion. This particular scheme targets a specific route to that end: persuading members of the Goan Diaspora, Goans who built careers outside the State, to set up or run IT operations back in Goa, and to staff them locally.

The instrument is straightforward. Office rent is the heaviest recurring cost for a services business with no factory, and the scheme pays a large part of it for the first two and a half years, provided the unit hires Goans.

There is a companion scheme in the same notification, the Capital Investment Subsidy Scheme (Goan Diaspora), which addresses capital expenditure rather than rent. The two are separate applications.

Who is eligible for the Goan Diaspora lease rental rebate?

Your unit can apply if:

• It is a New or Existing Unit with operations in Goa.
• It is one of these legal forms: a proprietorship firm, a private limited company or public limited company incorporated under the Companies Act, 2013 (or equivalent), a registered partnership firm under the Indian Partnership Act, 1932 (or equivalent), or a limited liability partnership under the LLP Act, 2008 (or equivalent).
• The company or firm is registered in Goa.
• Its CEO, head or majority stakeholder is a Goan Diaspora.
• It hires a minimum of 15 employees, and at least 60% of those employees are of Goan origin.
• The bank accounts of the unit and/or its partners or directors are linked to Aadhaar.
• It can produce Udyog Aadhaar. The scheme makes this an express condition of eligibility.
• It has been operational for at least one year prior to the date of application.
• For the office space claimed, the unit has operated from that space for more than one year.
• The expenditure was incurred during the operation of the policy.

You cannot apply, or are not eligible, if:

• You are an individual employee or a freelancer. This is a unit-level incentive; there is no personal benefit under it.
• Your unit is availing similar financial incentives under any other policy of the Government of Goa. The scheme excludes this double-dipping expressly.
• Your unit does not meet all three Diaspora conditions together: Goa registration, a Goan Diaspora CEO, head or majority stakeholder, and 15 employees with 60% of Goan origin.
• The unit has been operating for less than one year, or has occupied the office space for one year or less.
• The unit cannot produce Udyog Aadhaar, or its bank accounts are not Aadhaar-linked.

Eligibility is not a one-time test. The scheme states that units are subject to evaluation at the end of the fiscal year to verify eligibility for continuing to receive the subsidy.

How much does the scheme actually pay?

The quantum has two layers.

Layer one — the first six months. A 100% reimbursement of the lease rentals is provided for the first 6 months of operations.

Layer two: up to two years. Thereafter, a reimbursement of Rs 35 per square foot, or 80% of the total lease rentals, whichever is lower, is provided for a maximum period of 2 years.

The "whichever is lower" wording matters. On a lease at Rs 40 per sq ft, 80% is Rs 32, which is lower than Rs 35, so the unit gets Rs 32. On a lease at Rs 60 per sq ft, 80% is Rs 48, so the Rs 35 cap bites and the unit gets Rs 35. The scheme therefore does not reward taking premium space.

Then the pro-rata cut. Whatever the computed incentive, it is disbursed on a pro-rata basis against the share of employees of Goan origin or Goan graduates on the rolls of the company:

To count towards this calculation, employees must be on the rolls of the company for a minimum period of one year. A unit that hires locally in March and claims in April will not get credit for those hires.

Note the internal tension worth planning around: the entry condition requires 60% Goan-origin employees, while the disbursal table pays 100% only above 60%. A unit sitting exactly at the 60% line falls in the 75% band.

What documents does the claim need?

Alongside these, the scheme requires the Common Application Form, the application form for units (Annexure 1) and the declaration form for units (Annexure 2). Annexure 1 asks for the name and location of the leased premises, the annual lease rental amount paid, the area leased in square feet, the period for which the rebate is claimed, and the amount eligible per policy. Annexure 2 requires the unit to declare on record that it is registered in Goa, that its CEO, head or majority stakeholder is a Goan Diaspora, and that it hires at least 15 employees with at least 60% of Goan origin.

How to apply for the Goan Diaspora lease rental rebate

1. Register on the Goa Online portal at goaonline.gov.in. Verify your email ID and mobile number by OTP, then complete the registration form and create a login name and password.
2. File the Common Application Form (Part 1) with the requisite set of documents. The scheme allows the form and documents to be emailed or submitted on the web portal.
3. Note the unique registration number generated for your unit by the Department of Information Technology. Every later claim references it.
4. Wait out the one-year qualifying period. The unit must be operational for at least a year, and must have occupied the specific office space for more than a year, before a rebate can be claimed for that space.
5. Log in to goaonline.gov.in, open Services, then IT Services, and select this scheme to open its application form.
6. Submit the Common Application Form (Part 2) and the incentive-specific form (Annexure 1) to the Due Diligence Committee, with the lease deed, the proof of rent payment and the employee details.
7. Sign and attach the declaration form (Annexure 2) confirming the three Diaspora conditions.
8. Track the 90-day timeline: scrutiny by day 30, supported Committee approval by day 60, sanction order or regret letter and disbursement by day
9. Application status can be followed on the Goa Online status-tracking page.

Who decides the claim?

The Due Diligence Committee of the Department of Information Technology examines the application against the published checklist. The supported Committee is the competent authority to accept or reject any claim filed by a unit, and the scheme states that its decision is final and binding on the applicant.

Claims may be filed quarterly, half-yearly or annually after the expenditure is incurred, so a unit can either batch a year of rent into one claim or file as each quarter closes.

Why do lease rental rebate claims fail?

• The unit misses one of the three Diaspora conditions. Goa registration, a Goan Diaspora CEO or majority stakeholder, and 15 employees with 60% of Goan origin are cumulative, not alternative.
• Employees have not completed one year on the rolls, so they do not count towards the pro-rata slab even though they are on the payroll today.
• The office space has been occupied for one year or less. The rebate for a given space only opens after more than a year of operating from it.
• Udyog Aadhaar not produced, or bank accounts not Aadhaar-linked.
• No proof of rent payment. The lease deed shows what was agreed; only the payment proof shows what was paid, and the reimbursement is on rent actually paid.
• Another Goa Government incentive already availed for the same thing.
• Expenditure incurred outside the operating period of the policy.
• Fiscal-year re-evaluation fails, ending an otherwise running subsidy.

Where do I complain?

The first point of contact is the Department of Information Technology, Electronics and Communications, Government of Goa, whose scheme and policy pages are at dit.goa.gov.in. The supported Committee is the deciding authority, and the Department is where a file that has crossed day 90 without a sanction order or a regret letter should be pursued.

Application status can be tracked directly on goaonline.gov.in, which is also the State's general route for registering a public grievance where the Department's own response is unsatisfactory.

Practical points

• Confirm what is operative before you sign a lease. The 2018 scheme was framed to remain in force for 5 years from the date of its notification, and it was published on 23 August 2018. Goa's IT and startup policies have been revised since. Ask the Department of IT what is current before you plan a claim around it.
• Benefits are subject to budgetary allocation. The notification states that its provisions are not binding representations and that promissory estoppel does not apply against the Government.
• Hire early and hire local. Both the entry test and the disbursal slab turn on Goan-origin employees who have completed a year on the rolls, so the hiring decision precedes the money by twelve months.
• Keep rent receipts monthly. Reconstructing a year of rent payments from a landlord after the fact is the most common avoidable delay in this kind of reimbursement.

How to check your application status

1. Log in to goaonline.gov.in with the same login name and password created at the time of registering the unit on the portal.
2. Open "My Applications" or the equivalent applications dashboard on the portal. The Common Application Form and the Annexure 1 claim you filed for this scheme appear here against the unique registration number the Department of Information Technology issued when you first submitted the CAF.
3. Read the status shown against the application, which will typically move through stages such as submitted, under scrutiny, placed before the Due Diligence Committee, and sanctioned or rejected. The scheme sets internal timelines of scrutiny by day 30 and Committee decision by day 60 from submission, so a claim still shown as "under scrutiny" well past day 30 is running behind the department's own benchmark.
4. Keep the unique registration number handy for every follow-up. Because lease rental claims can be filed quarterly, half-yearly or annually, the same unit may have more than one claim in the system at different stages; the registration number is what ties a specific claim to a specific rebate period.
5. If day 90 passes with neither a sanction order nor a regret letter, do not assume the claim is still being processed silently. Follow up in writing with the Department of Information Technology, Electronics and Communications, Government of Goa, referencing the registration number and the date of submission, and ask for the file's current stage before the Due Diligence Committee.
6. For a claim that shows as rejected, the sanction order or regret letter issued by the supported Committee is expected to state a reason. Since the Committee's decision is final and binding, use that reason to fix the specific gap (a missing document, an unmet eligibility condition) before re-applying for a subsequent claim period, rather than disputing the same claim.
7. If the portal itself is not reflecting an update, the fallback is a direct query to the Department of IT rather than resubmitting the same documents, since a duplicate submission can itself create confusion about which filing is current.