RAJNI SHARMA 

Jammu & Kashmir Union Territory has made substantial progress in industrial development during the last four decades with the efforts made by the State Government and Government of India by sanctioning various Incentive Schemes/Packages.

The Government, has adopted Industrial Policies from time to time (i.e 1995, 1998 & 2004) the latest being Industrial Policy, 2016. Similarly Govt. of India sanctioned packages of incentives for the industrial development of the State at different intervals (Central Capital Investment Scheme, 2002, 2012) the latest being Scheme of Budgetary Support under Goods and Services Tax regime and JKIDS 2018, notified on 5th October, 2017 and 23rd April, 2018 respectively.

Incentive package by Government of India include Central Capital Investment Incentive for access to credit at the rate of 30 per cent of the investment in plant and machinery with an upper limit of Rs. 5.00 crore, Central Interest Incentive at the rate of 3 per cent on Capital credit advanced by the scheduled banks or central/state financial institutions, Central Comprehensive Insurance Incentive at the rate of 100 per cent of insurance premium on insurance of building and plant and machinery and reimbursement of the Goods & Services Tax paid by the unit limited to the Central Governments share of CGST and/or IGST retained after devolution of a part of these taxes to the State.

The Pradhan Mantri Mudra Yojana has been making steady progress since inception in 2015, with increase in small business loans year-on-year. For instance, during 2015-16, the sanctioned amount was a modest Rs 1,185 crore. It grew to Rs 3,404 crore during 2018-19. The number of beneficiaries increased to 1,33,078 from 59,974. In the current financial year, the Mudra loans sanction has already touched Rs 1,400 crore.

Pradhan Mantri Jan Aarogya Yojan (PMJAY), which is implementing health insurance under Ayushman Bharat, is also under way. Out of 21,26,937 families, 6,13,697 have been identified as eligible under the scheme and 29 per cent of the families have been reaping the benefits. The claims submitted so far are for about Rs 8.78 crore till May 2019. The access to the scheme is through 126 public and 33 private hospitals.

The Centre’s pet scheme for financial inclusion, Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana (PMJDY), has 1.72 crore beneficiaries with a total balance of Rs 940 crore in Jan Dhan accounts.

Compared to Mudra and PMJAY, this no-frills basic bank account scheme, however, appears to be a little slow but the number of beneficiaries is reasonably good in terms of proportion of population.

Now that the Centre is administering J&K directly, it remains to be seen how it impacts the implementation of schemes of Government of India.