Chief Minister, Mehbooba Mufti today said her Government is working to facilitate the industry and trading community in the State as Jammu & Kashmir is first on many counts to incentivise business and industry.Chairing the 7th Industrial Advisory Committee meeting here today, the Chief Minister said her Government took many reformative steps to encourage and instil confidence among the industry. She said Jammu & Kashmir is the first State to roll out incentives under GST and even major reforms in labour laws in the State were undertaken by the present Government. Deputy Chief Minister, Dr. Nirmal Singh; Minister for Industries & Commerce, Chander Parkash Ganga; Minister for Finance, Dr. Haseeb Drabu and Minister of State for Industries & Commerce, Asiea Naqash were present in the meeting.Mehbooba Mufti directed constitution of a committee headed by Chief Secretary to follow the cases of payment of rent in respect of industrial units against which rent is due from Police and other security agencies. She asked the committee to conclude the process at the earliest.
The Chief Minister, during the meeting, was briefed about many steps being taken by the Government to ease the business activity in the State and also which have been flagged by the industry representatives from time to time.The meeting was informed that the process of providing round the clock power supply to Industrial Estates is on with laying of infrastructure, cables and transformers. Also, the meeting was informed, many items have been removed from the negative list of items being imported into the State on the suggestions of the trade representatives.During the meeting, many of the representatives thanked the Government for rolling out many incentive schemes for business and industrial sector and taking steps for encouraging business activities in the State.On the occasion, the Chief Minister unveiled the latest issue of Sanat o Hirfat, a coffee table book of the Industries Department detailing the facilities, incentives and opportunities in the field.Principal Secretary to Chief Minister, Rohit Kansal; Principal Secretary, Finance, Navin Choudhary; Commissioner-Secretary, Industries & Commerce, Shailendra Kumar; administrative secretaries of various other Departments; representatives of trade and industry and other senior officers were present in the meeting.