On signing of Memorandum of Understanding with Dubai based corporate giants a couple of days before, the reactions from the local politicians were not surprising. It is obvious as such development was not according to their decades long established narratives.
Lieutenant Governor Manoj Sinha of Jammu & Kashmir was in Dubai to participate in Dubai Expo 2020 and successfully inked six agreements with global investors at Dubai to bring in investments in the Union Territory’s real estate, infrastructure, tourism, healthcare and manpower employment sectors among others.
Sinha addressed the Investors Summit in Dubai on Thursday, which was attended by renowned business leaders and investors from the United Arab Emirates (UAE). He told business leaders there, assuring them that his government would provide an investment-friendly environment to the global investors.
J&K, indeed has the capability to provide an opportunity to the industries to compete, correct and collaborate with readily available abundant resources. The new dispensation has removed the archaic laws that undoubtedly proved hurdles in bringing investment in J&K despite many efforts by the erstwhile state governments headed by Farooq Abdullah, Mufti Mohd Syed and of course, Omar Abdullah. Crores of rupees were spent by these leaders on their foreign jaunts with jumbo size entourage in the name bringing investment in J&K but they miserably failed as they were never genuinely wanted the investors to come as to make them feel secure and comfortable, they had to remove all bottlenecks and hurdles. More than 890 Central laws, which are the key drivers of socio-economic growth, have been made applicable to J&K in the last two years, he said.
The bogey of ‘Sale of Land to Outsiders’ is just to stir the emotive unrest among the people as they too tried to bring these ‘Outsiders’ but failed.
Local protesters and regional political parties have accused the centre of “putting J&K up for sale”.
Omar Tweeted, “Once again the true intentions of the government are brought to the fore. While offering to secure the land, jobs, domicile laws & identity of the people of Ladakh, J&K are being put up for sale. People of Jammu should beware, “investors” will buy up land in Jammu long before Kashmir.”
It is nothing but to mislead the people in J&K and the state and no government can sell its land to anybody local or outsiders. It can provide the land on lease basis which is not new in J&K. Many outsider companies and individuals were granted land on lease to establish their industries in J&K. Yes the difference may be in streamlining the laws and in removing the hurdles to ensure the safety of the investors’ funds and his right to have reasonable profit on his investment free from all political and other pressures and blackmails.
