The Kashmir Chamber of Commerce and Industry expressedconcern at the decision of the Governor’s administration to lease out 60 kanalsof industrial land to the CRPF in Zakura.
A spokesperson of the KCC&I stated that the businesscommunity of the State was suffering due to the non-availability of land.”The KCC&I is on record to have asked the Government, time and again,to retrieve land wasted under the occupation of Government Public SectorUndertakings (PSU’s) and make the same available for industrial/commercialuse,” he said, in a statement.
“It was surprising that instead the Government hadrecently announced that it was in the process of identification of land forcreation of small Satellite Industrial Estates of around 40 kanals, whereas hugechunks of prime industrial land were being converted into camps and residentialquarters for security forces.”
The spokesman said that already more than 300 kanals of landbelonging to the Zainakote Industrial Estate was transferred to different wingsof the State and Central Security Forces. This land was retrieved from theerstwhile Hindustan Machine Tools (HMT) group in the year 2017.
He said the decision also ignores the objections raised byCity Planners in the just notified Master Plan- 2035 for the SrinagarMetropolitan Region. “It would be pertinent to reproduce portions of Para7.6 of Page 69 of the Plan which read as, ‘As per the existing land use, thedefence use is spread over an area of 23.0 Sq km. Including many military andparamilitary establishments. The widespread existence of military andparamilitary establishments across Srinagar has actually surpassed its areaunder public infrastructure. The statistics reveal that there is more areaoccupied by defence use than the area used for the development of District,Divisional and State level public and semi-public infrastructure. Theindiscriminate dispersal of defence establishments in every nook and corner ofthe city including the civilian areas is construed as a major impediment incity development. Adopting the guidelines of the Ministry of Defense, thesituation will become more grim causing undesirable strain on urbaninfrastructure’.”
The spokesman said that the KCC&I would also beconsidering approaching the High Court, if needed, in this regard.