Reiterating that if any area or sector of the economy needed very preferred attention in Jammu and Kashmir, it was to improving upon the overall power scenario by increasing adequately the generation of power not only for domestic use but for exporting too thus earning a handsome revenue by the UT Government on consistent basis. Since there is vast but unexplored and untapped hydro power potential in the UT, as also since there is sufficient available water resources, it therefore needed lot of investment to make use of for generating power. However, for that avenues needed to be found out, prospective investors searched and seen how best they could be motivated and incentivised too to invest in power sector in the UT. In this connection, it is heartening to note that Jammu and Kashmir Government has increasingly realised the importance and the need of going in for taking such steps and taking innovative decisions that would be practical in implementation and taken as incentives by the would be investors vis-a-vis good dividends to their investments. For that, a scheme of reimbursement of the State Goods and Services Tax (SGST) to such investors has been announced, of course, with certain conditions which would prove really to be a game changer and, perhaps, work wonders in the entire scenario especially when the start of reimbursement of the Tax will take place right from the date of commencement of construction of projects till they are complete in all respects.
That concentration needs to be had on major projects, all slated to come up in Jammu region, has been made amply clear as the scheme announced is going to be made applicable in respect of these four projects, at the outset, at Kwar, Pakal Dul, Kiru and Ratle. These power projects with ambitious power generating capacity of 3015 Mega Watts will definitely prove of crossing a major milestone towards attaining self sufficiency in power sector in Jammu and Kashmir. The prime cause of attracting to invest in these major power projects by the prospective investors could broadly be on account of the nature of project where investment was to be made. In other words, the demand for power is ever increasing and Jammu and Kashmir – one of the fast developing parts of the country-needs more electricity which is expected to still increase in the years to come. That means there should be massive addition to the existing installed power generation capacity which needs massive capital base. Since most of the projects get held up or delayed, if not abandoned totally due to insufficient and erratic way of releasing of funds, investments would be of immense value in terms of availability of sufficient capital. Hence, the executing agencies of these four power projects will get full and timely reimbursement of the SGST which worked out over the period of construction, would get added into the profit / dividend earned by the investor / executing agencies.
Since the reimbursement of payment of the requisite tax has got to be on quarterly basis, the same is envisaged to be worked out accordingly and claims filed every quarter or four times a year. It is fairly understood that the invoices etc from the suppliers and submitted by the executing agencies would be genuine, properly priced and amount cleared in full payment. Care has, however, to be taken that no chance of any counterfeit or duplicate invoicing was allowed to get passed through only to claim the SGST. However, as the Prime Minister has been stressing upon the concept of “electricity mix”, efforts need simultaneously to be adequately made in respect of harnessing more solar and renewable energy and not entirely depend on high cost hydro electricity generation only.
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