SRINAGAR: The Jammu and Kashmir government’s tax holiday along with a gamut of rebates for setting up industrial units in the union territory has started getting in industrial units from the bordering Punjab state to the Jammu division.

Scores of local Punjab-based industrial units have started shifting base to Jammu for availing benefits under the New Central Sector Scheme for Industrial Development of the UT of Jammu and Kashmir, the Tribune reported.

The Punjabi industrialists blame the successive state governments along with the incumbent Aam Aadmi Party government for not coming up with industry-oriented schemes which now the Jammu and Kashmir’s current administration has done for attracting investment.

Pankaj Mehra, director, Mehra Wax Products Private Limited, has already started constructing his new unit in Ghati industrial area in the Jammu division’s Kathua district.

Mehra got the land at Rs 600 per square yard in Kathua which he says is “unimaginable” to get anywhere in Punjab.

Mehra’s wax manufacturing unit would have to pay no GST for 10 years, a 30 per cent refund on capital subsidy, power supply at Rs 4 per unit, and many other financial benefits.

Mehra said that many other units in different sectors were moving from Punjab to Kathua leading to a shortage of rental houses in the area.

Piara Lal Seth, president of the Punjab Pradesh Beopar Mandal (PPBM), said despite repeated requests to successive governments to create a land bank for the industrialists to provide them plots at moderate rates besides minimum power tariff and incentives to border areas, nothing was done.

He said the Union government was providing four types of hand-holdings which include capital investment incentive, capital interest subvention, goods, and services tax-linked incentive, and working capital interest subvention to industries in Jammu and Kashmir.

Seth opines that the Jammu and Kashmir government’s goal to attract capital investments in the area to the tune of Rs 28,400 crore by 2037 is likely to be met soon.

LEAVE A REPLY

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here