Regional development: AJK govt to set up new industrial zone in Mirpur

Plan envisages a wide network of roads; uninterrupted power, water supply.

MIRPUR: In a bid to revive the ‘skilled and green Kashmir’ initiative and provide impetus to the stagnant process of industrial uplift  in Azad Jammu Kashmir, the government is contemplating setting up  a new mega industrial zone in Mirpur, official sources revealed.

The new mega industrial zone is to be constructed near Moori village on Mirpur Jatlan Road for which the required land was being acquired by the government to materialise the plan, sources told The Express Tribune.

The AJK government, they said, intended to provide the existing and upcoming entrepreneurs facilities on a par with those available in Punjab and the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa “to ensure speedy uplift of the industrial sector”.

The industrial plan also envisaged providing a wide network of roads, uninterrupted power and water supply and telephone facilities in the industrial estates.

Sources added that the government’s primary goal is to provide relief to those industrialists who have had to face huge overhead freight charges of transportation of raw material from various parts of Pakistan to their industrial units based in AJK. It was the government’s hope to overcome unemployment – particularly among the educated youth – and alleviate poverty in the area through this industrialisation scheme.

Meanwhile, the government also took strong notice of the increased trend of misusing the existing five-year tax holidays by certain groups operating in the industrial estates in Mirpur and Bhimbher districts — they close down their units after enjoying the tax holidays for five years through renaming their existing industrial units. This is done to enjoy the tax holidays for another five-year period through using the same machinery and the same premises for their productions.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 10^th, 2011.