Rohit Zantye
Rohit Zantye is the Chair of Yi Goa Chapter for the year 2019-20. A Bachelor in Commerce from Goa University, he holds a Masters degree from the University of Mumbai. He has completed his MBA from the prestigious Symbiosis Centre for Management and Human Resource Development. After the completion of MBA he joined the family business (Zantye Group) and is looking after the cashew processing unit for the last decade. Since its inception in 1928, the Zantye group has led the industry in cashew processing and exports and has achieved global recognition. Rohit is also the secretary of
Goa Cashew Manufacturers’ Association for the last 5 years and has been actively involved in taking up various issues faced by the cashew industry in the state. He has also served as President of Lions Club of Bicholim for the year 2017-18.
What is the primary focus of Yi, for this term?
Yi is an intregral part of CII formed in the year 2002 with the main objective to focus on issues of national importance. Yi Goa chapter was formed in 2008 and we have completed 10 years with a membership strength of 50. This year, our focus is on ‘Policy Advocacy’ and promotion of entrepreneurship. As of of our main projects in policy advocacy, we conducted a workshop on the new education policy which is drafted by the central government. We conducted this project with the help of Principal’s Forum and Directorate of Higher Education, Government of Goa. We had arranged experts from Mumbai to speak on these topics; and the program was attended by principals and management representatives of all the colleges in Goa. The participants and the colleges submitted their suggestions on the draft New Educational Policy, which was then forwarded to the central government.
What legacy programmes have you continued from your predecessors?
Our flagship activities like Masoom, Gift an Organ, Road Safety, Thought Leadership Conclave (TLC) are all continuing projects and they are achieving new milestones with every new chapter president adding their contribution to this legacy.
‘Masoom’ is our flagship project which is creating awareness on child sexual abuse. During the last 5 years, we have sensitised more than 55000 children across various schools in Goa. mostly in rural areas. This year, we have sensitised more than 5000 children.
The ‘Gift an Organ’ vertical was started 3 years ago with its main objective to remove the myths with regards to organ donation; and also to convince people to pledge their organs. This year, we have sensitised more than 1200 people and quite a few of them have also pledged their organs.
Road safety is comparatively a new vertical which was started last year. Besides creating awareness on road safety we have a very interesting project where we work with school children and its called as CHOTA COP. Here we train the school students on various aspects of road safety and this is followed by giving them a simple self assessment report card, where they can observe their parents and make notes. They can share the report card with parents and tell them how they could follow better traffic norms. A follow-up assessment is done after 6 months to see if there has been any change from the first assessment. By doing this, we are creating an impact at 2 levels – one is immediate, where parents will learn to be more conscious before breaking traffic rules as they wouldn’t want to set a wrong example; and also these children, when they are eligible to get a driving licence, will be aware about the rules.
Along with the above projects, we have an engagement with students of Goa Institute of Management to work on ‘blind spots’ and how to reduce accidents at these spots.
‘Thought Leadership Conclave’ is our annual business conference where we invite CEOs of top Indian companies to bring to the forefront transformative ideas that would redefine the way India lives both on the old guard and the startup movement.
What is Yi’s mandate for the term – at national level?
The pan-India vision of Yi is for local chapters to take an active part in Policy Advocacy and also to involve the youth in various nation building programs. Yuva is our extention where we start a yuva chapter in colleges; and this year we have started in 2 colleges with a membership strength of 145 students. The focus is also on creating an internship program for yuva members which can be offered by Yi members or CII members. The national agenda is also to create 10000 new entrepreneurs by the year 2022 across 40 chapters all over the country. For this, our chapter will also organise a boot camp which will be conducted in association with Centre for Incubation and Business Acceleration (CIBA).
Your team had hosted a workshop for local farmers of Canacona. What was the idea behind this? What was the benefit that they derived?
Under Yi Goa’s, ‘Rural Initiative’ vertical, we distributed 500 cashew grafts to the farmers of Paryemol Cola village in Canacona. Bees are a very important part of our food chain and they are very vital for pollination of flowers and formation of fruit. Bee keeping will not only help farmers with an additional source of income by sale of honey, but more importantly gain by more than 40% increase in yield. We have donated 2 boxes for bee keeping to the villages and we will hand-hold them for one year. If we find a positive impact of this exercise, we will replicate the same in the other villages of Goa.
Who feature in your team at Yi Goa and what strengths do they bring to the table?
We have 8 verticals in Yi Goa and each of them have a vertical chair and co-chair which makes the executive committee along with our executive member Fernando, Past Chairs Nitin Desai, Rupesh Gauns, Omkar Kamat Sambari, Nikhil Khalap, my co-chair Anirudh Dempo and Goa CII Head Deepankar Bargali. Nothing would have been accomplished without the support of all the members of Yi Goa. We have a good mix of members and all are committed to the goal of nation building. I would like to sincerely appreciate the efforts of our past chairs, Nikhil Lawande and Erle Britto, who have guided me during the year and have also been an integral part of all the activities conducted during the year.
What are the various means that you wish to spread the message of Yi to Goa?
At Yi Goa, we have our Facebook page where we post all our activities; besides all activities of Yi National are posted on the Yi Instagram handle. But I believe we have some ground to cover on the aspect of spreading information of work done by Yi Goa through our various projects.
I would like to thank Business Goa for giving me a platform for spreading the good work done at Yi Goa, not only this year; but over the last 10 years
