Srinagar, Mar 19: Chief Secretary Dr. Arun Kumar Mehta stated on Sunday that policies that discouraged investment existed previous to 2019. Even no one from the nation could invest in or purchase land here, he claimed.
In his remarks at the mega mall’s foundation-laying ceremony in Sempora, CS Mehta noted that until 2019, no one could invest in Jammu and Kashmir.
Forget about foreigners, even Indians couldn’t invest in J&K, he argued, since the rules were written in a way that discouraged such activity.
According to CS Mehta, they (previous governments) did in J&K since no one can acquire land here and they made sure that no investors could enter. No one could make an investment here, and no one could buy land,” he said.
He said that if there was no competition in the economy, the government at the time had created SICOP and SIDCO in order to boost enterprises.
“They protected sectors that had no competition and they would buy nomination that the political system would turn into a crisis, then they really damaged the economy,” he added.
Mehta said their strategy resulted in the destruction of the economy under the guise of protectionism, and while the rest of the world was advancing towards efficiency, J&K was growing even more isolated.
Chief Secretary said the four fundamentals things for economy are important that include land, labour, capital and entrepreneurship.
“Many people shouted that J&K economy had gone down, even during period of COVID, there were four states whose economy was not gone down and one of them was J&K,” he said.
CS Mehta J&K continued to grow, even 2019 onwards as a healthy way, our growth rate has been better than national average.
“Our GST collections are better than national average. Those people who are taking about decline in economy in J&K are talking rubbish,” he said.
He also said some people talk about is that employment has gone down, if you government data and I don’t think that private data that something we can rely upon.
“Our employment rate has highly improved. There are three fundamental things, wage employments, self employment were saturated and government employments, we can give only as much and no more,” he said adding that in fact government employment beyond a point becomes counter productive.
“Today is historic day, people from entire are welcome in Jammu and Kashmir. Now J&k has arrived in competitive spirit and every city completes for these investments.
“J&K economy is going to double in next 5 years anyway. We saw highest tourist fall in 2022 and nobody would have think about it,” he said.
