Working on incentives to promote development in J&K region: Goyal

Many firms have shown interest to invest in the Jammu & Kashmir region, Goyal said, adding some of the announcements would be part of the upcoming Budget.

Piyush Goyal

Highlighting the scope of investment opportunities in sectors such as food processing, hydropower, solar power, tourism, fruits in Jammu & Kashmir, Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal Wednesday said the government is working on incentives and steps to promote industrial development and economic integration with rest of the country. Many firms have shown interest to invest in the Jammu & Kashmir region, Goyal said, adding some of the announcements would be part of the upcoming Budget.

“The government is working on significant incentives and steps to promote industrial development. It will give a boost to investor sentiment in the region…I am sure more and more people would like to set up industries and invest in that region…you will hear more in the days to come and in the Budget to come,” Goyal said at Kashmironomics Conclave 2019.

“Wherever I got the chance to speak about it including in UAE, there was lot of interest about coming and investing in Kashmir valley. We had food processing companies talk to us about their interest in setting up food processing units there, they can clearly see that apples, walnuts have huge potential to grow…we have lost international demand for saffron and have to get it back in the Valley,” Goyal added.

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Goyal said the government is working on completing the railway link to the region. A project is underway to connect Udhampur-Srinagar-Baramulla, a 272-km long rail link, of which 161 km is already completed and work on the rest is going on along with the work on Katra-Banihal section, he said. Goyal said construction of Chenab Rail Bridge is underway and the government expects it to complete in a defined timeline. “We have also completed location survey of 475 km long Bilaspur-Manali-Leh new broad gauge rail line,” he added.

The government is also planning to set up inland container depots and grant geographical indication (GI) tags to some local products such as apricots and Seabuckthorn plant in Ladakh. “Food processing, tourism, juices, jams can bring sustainable development to Jammu & Kashmir, can bring long term economic prosperity to the region, can bring balanced development to the various parts of Jammu, Kashmir, Leh, Ladakh areas instead of focusing on few areas,” he said adding the government will look at setting up more institutes and skill development in a bigger way in the region.

Speaking at the same function, Textiles Minister Smriti Irani said there is potential to make this region a hub for handmade carpets. She said markets that are vacated by China can be tapped by these two UTs. The minister said that as there are eight languages spoken in this region, one can look at media and infotainment segments for developing local content.

Irani, who is also the Minister for Women and Child Development, said the ministry has decided to establish chairs in universities and colleges in the name of women who have played key roles in the development of the country. She said Lal Ded chair for spiritualism is now going to be financially and academically backed by the ministry in conjunction with UGC under the aegis of the human resource development ministry. —With PTI

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