Mehbooba Mufti leads J & K to an exclusive 'Women business center'

Jammu and Kashmir will soon have an exclusive Women Business Centre which would help boost women entrepreneurship in the state.

In a significant step to boost women entrepreneurship in the state, Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti has ordered the conversion of Jammu Haat into an exclusive ‘Women Business Centre’. For this, she directed Industries and Commerce Department to prepare a ‘Business Plan’ within the next two months so that brass tacks are done to establish the Centre, which she said is ideally located in the heart of the winter capital.

She said this while taking a detailed briefing of the Industries and Commerce Department, in the Civil Secretariat, here today. Assuring all help to MSME (Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises) sector in the state, the Chief Minister linked big investments with creation of job opportunities for trained human resource, with special focus on entrepreneurial opportunities for women.

She hoped the new State Industrial Policy will facilitate ‘Ease of Doing Business’ and give new direction in making Jammu and Kashmir an investor-friendly destination.

We need to evolve a mechanism where high-end investors and business houses train our skilled manpower as per their requirement. Their DPRs should reflect the kind of skilled workforce they need, she said.

She tasked the Entrepreneurship Development Institute (EDI) to map the skills which are required by the investors for setting up their units in the state. This opportunity will created employment for at least 15,000 local youth every year.

Some of the big companies to venture into Jammu and Kashmir include Blue Star, ITC, Dabur, Ever-Ready, besides Chenab Textile Mills, which is expanding its existing unit within an investment of Rs 1,200 crore. The chief minister has asked Industries and Commerce Department to facilitate credit flow to young local entrepreneurs in the state.

Our focus should be on our own budding entrepreneurs as much as it should be on big investors, she added.

Also read : 5 things you should know about Mehbooba Mufti, Jammu and Kashmir’s first woman CM

To build investor confidence, Mehbooba instructed the department to ease bottlenecks in clearances of cases for which more services like land allotment, power availability certificate and No objection Certificates from Pollution Control Board have to be brought within the ambit of Public Services Guarantee Act. She has also emphasised on clearance of incentive cases of business entrepreneurs in a hassle-free manner.