The members of the Associated Chamber of Commerce and Industries-Kashmir (CCIK) has demanded framing of a new industrial policy specifically for the local industrialists as they remain ineligible to get benefits from the proposed new Industrial policy due to their small turnover.
In a statement the Chamber said that the members of the CCIK were of the unanimous view that “Jammu and Kashmir deserves and requires a separate Industrial Policy as because it being geographically at a disadvantageous location.”
Latif A Bhat president CCIK said that Kashmir was not a place for heavy industries. “This being geographically located at the far end in hilly regions, the freight component of its products is very very unfriendly, which makes the product highly uncompetitive in the open market. For this purpose, if the industrial sector has to survive, generally, the price preference given to the local industries by the Govt. has to continue for the bare survival of this sector,” he said in the statement. “The electric demand charges also need to be reduced and the electricity duty imposed on it be adjusted with its GST. Since Kashmir was not meant for heavy industries, the existing industrial units did not have turnover of such kind as has been laid down for the purpose of lease of lands to the sector in the proposed Industrial Policy. The local Industrialists would not qualify for getting lease of lands. Therefore, it becomes all the more essential that a separate industrial policy be designed for Jammu and Kashmir.”
The CCIK said that the conditionalities for registration of the existing units in the service sector are in the realm of ‘impossibility’. “It would have been advisable that the existing service sector units presented a proof of their existence, not submission of documents like this, that and the other. This makes sense for fresh units, not for the existing ones,” the statement reads. “The CCIK feels that the Govt. should consider these submissions seriously and do the needful as requested for.”