Excelsior Correspondent
NEW DELHI, Mar 10 : Union Minister Dr Jitendra Singh said here today that Government is contemplating several investor-friendly measures for Jammu & Kashmir and some of these have already been initiated. The positive outcome of these initiatives and their beneficial effect on the overall economy as well as job generation will begin to appear soon, he said.
Speaking after over 45-minute one-to-one discussion with a delegation led by Kashmir Economic Alliance, comprising representatives from trade,industry, tourism, handicraft, horticulture, agriculture, houseboat, etc, Dr. Jitendra Singh said that nearly 30 years of militancy coupled with self-seeking priorities of ruling political parties had pushed back Jammu & Kashmir by several decades or else, the city of Srinagar would have developed like Hyderabad and the city of Jammu like Jalandhar.
However, he said, the determined and decisive initiative taken by the Centre promised to bring about rapid transformation and Prime Minister Narendra Modi accords highest priority to the development of Jammu & Kashmir in order to bring it at par with the other parts of the country and also to give it the same kind of focus which was given to North East in the last five years.
The members of delegation put across some of the immediate concerns and constraints faced by them which, according to them, were causing disadvantage to their business activities. Following this, Dr Jitendra Singh called up on telephone the Principal Secretary (Finance), Jammu & Kashmir, Arun Kumar Mehta in their very presence and fixed up a meeting for them with the latter.
Dr Jitendra Singh assured the members of the delegation saying, many of the steps taken after the creation of the Union Territory of Jammu & Kashmir aimed at bringing about ease of business. Some of these, for instance, he said, included amnesty scheme for power tariff, loan scheme envisaging Funded Interest Term Loan, restructuring of loan with relaxation of stamp duty etc.
The members of the delegation said that due to certain intrinsic reasons they were not in a position to avail of some of these new measures and therefore requested for consideration of the inputs furnished by them. They also referred to the past disruption in tourist inflow which had led to substantial loss in houseboat business.
Dr Jitendra Singh expressed satisfaction over the huge response that the Union Territory Government’s investor outreach drive had received all over the country, following which MoUs to the extent of nearly Rs 2,000 crore had been signed.
In the times to come, said Dr Jitendra Singh, many of the business related benefits which were earlier available in the rest of the country but were denied to Jammu & Kashmir, will also be available to the people of the new Union Territory.
The delegation had sought appointment for a meeting through Mohd Iqbal Trumboo, Vice Chairman, Kashmir Economic Alliance and comprised Maajid Aslam Wafai, Tariq Ghani, Akram Khan and others.
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