Why in news:

• The Union Territory Administrative Council (AC), headed by Lieutenant Governor recently approved the transfer of 2,318 kanal (289.75 acres ), eight marla (2,178.008 sq. ft.) in seven villages at 17 locations in Srinagar and Budgam districts.
• The move comes a month after Dubai-based realtors signed deals with the Jammu and Kashmir government.

Key Points:

• The land has been transferred to the Housing and Urban Development Department for construction of housing colonies “free of cost”.
• Lieutenant Governor approved the transfer “to meet the increased appetite for housing in Srinagar city and give a push to the housing sector”.
• The construction of the Housing Colony Project will play a very important role in the economic, industrial, social and cultural development of Jammu and Kashmir.
• It will provide direct employment to skilled, unskilled labour as well as indirect employment to local vendors and youth, besides ensuring the development of local areas to meet the rising housing demand as per the concerned officials.
• The Srinagar Development Authority (SDA) and the Jammu and Kashmir Housing Board (JKHB) have been assigned the task of finalising the type designs and other modalities of the projects with a special focus on developing affordable housing on the land parcels.
• The Centre and the Jammu and Kashmir governments held the first-ever “Jammu and Kashmir Real Estate Conference” in Jammu in December and announced to open local real estate for “second homes and summer homes” to all the citizens of the country, in a major push to attract investments from real estate.
• It was followed by a series of meetings of Jammu and Kashmir officials with the United Arab Emirates (UAE) top realtors in Dubai in December-January.
• An investment of approximately ?3,000 crore from industrial giants like Emaar, Lulu, MATU Investments, Al Maya Group, GL Employment Brokerage LLC, Century Financial, Noon e-commerce etc. was agreed upon during the recently held Dubai Expo 2022.
• One letter of intent was also signed with Magna Waves Pvt. Ltd along with Emaar Group and Lulu International, which is interested in coming up with a mall and an inland port in Kashmir.
• The Jammu and Kashmir government is expecting an investment of ?18,300 crore in the real estate sector.
• Since the Centre ended Jammu and Kashmir’s special constitutional position on August 5, 2019, the Jammu and Kashmir administration has liberalised both industrial and land policy.
• Large-scale amendments were made to the Jammu and Kashmir Industrial Policy 2021-30, Jammu and Kashmir Industrial Land Allotment Policy 2021-30 and Jammu and Kashmir Private Industrial Estate Development Policy 2021-30 to attract outsider buyers and investors to the Union Territory (UT).

By: A D Singh