J&K Industrial Challenges

Jammu and Kashmir's industrial story is increasingly one of grand announcements followed by quiet withdrawals. The Government's written response during the ongoing Assembly session reveals a concerning pattern for anyone monitoring the Union Territory's economic future: MoU signed with fanfare, land allotted after full payment, and then - silence, followed by surrender. Consider the sequence. Haldiram Snacks Private Limited signed an MoU promising Rs 300 crore and a thousand jobs; land was allotted, then surrendered. Yida Chemicals, courted at the Vibrant Gujarat Summit in 2024 with another Rs 300 crore commitment, simply did not proceed. And now these two failures must be read alongside the far larger withdrawal disclosed last year: Ceylon Beverages, the company floated by former Sri Lankan cricketer Muttiah Muralitharan, pulled out of a Rs 1,650-crore investment in Kathua in March 2025. Together, these three cases account for over Rs 2,250 crore of announced investment that has evaporated - after land was handed over, not merely promised. That distinction matters enormously. This is not a case of proposals dying on the drawing board; these were companies that cleared the initial hurdles, received real parcels of industrial land, and still chose to walk away.

The Government's silence on why is, frankly, indefensible. When public land - a finite and contested resource - is allotted to a private entity and then returned unused, the public has a right to know what went wrong. Was it delayed power connectivity? Bureaucratic friction? A missed incentive window seems to be the issue with Ceylon Beverages, which reportedly could not meet the 2021-37 industrial policy's incentive timeline and has since opted to set up its plant in Pune instead. This brings into sharp focus the fate of the Rs 28,000-crore-plus industrial package associated with the current policy. With no fresh allocation reportedly open under it at present, the question is unavoidable: will the land and incentives vacated by these departing majors be redirected to genuine contenders waiting in the pipeline, or will they simply lapse into administrative limbo?

The withdrawal crisis cannot be separated from the deeper malaise of land availability and allotment. The Government's own figures show indents placed for nearly 11,800 kanals across seventeen locations in 2024-25 and 2025-26, against which only around 8,200 kanals have actually been transferred. Meanwhile, thousands of applicants remain in limbo - 717 units in Jammu division alone reportedly unable to secure land because availability has been exhausted, even as vacant plots sit untouched in estates such as Dinga Amb, where over 1,166 kanals remain vacant despite allotments, or Nambal in Reasi, with more than 123 kanals lying idle. The long-pending Balole estate in Bari Brahmana, where a substantial portion of land remains under encroachment a decade after acquisition began, and the Panjgrain estate in Nagrota, stuck for two years in an unresolved tussle between the Revenue and Forest departments, illustrate how land identified on paper rarely translates into land ready for industry that can actually be used. Nor are the newer sites free of controversy. Plans for industrial development on flood-prone land at Nowgam in Srinagar and in Shopian's Trenz village have drawn legal and environmental challenges, including scrutiny from the NGT and High Court, over building on floodplains that threaten downstream communities and orchards. Estates announced with fanfare in Shangus, Anantnag, meanwhile, show no allotments or units established at all.

Taken together, these threads - mega-investments abandoned after land was secured, an unexplained gap between land sought and land delivered, encroachment and inter-departmental disputes left to fester for years, and new estates being proposed on contested or ecologically sensitive ground - do not paint a picture of an industrial ecosystem ready for the scale of ambition the Government advertises at investor summits.

The 2021-30 policy's incentives, including the 100 per cent DG set subsidy, are generous on paper, but no industry can run sustainably on diesel generators alone without reliable power connectivity. At a time when regional conflict and global tariff pressures are already testing manufacturers, Jammu and Kashmir cannot afford avoidable, self-inflicted deterrents. The administration must clear reasons for these withdrawals, resolve the encroachment and inter-departmental disputes that have stalled estates for years, and ensure that land freed by departing investors reaches those still waiting. Transparency alone will rebuild investor trust.