- Saturday, April 20, 2024
By: Shubham Ghosh
The northern Indian Union Territory (UT) of Jammu and Kashmir will receive its first foreign investment with the Dubai-based Emaar Group set to build a shopping and office complex there for Rs 5 billion (£49 million), Reuters reported.
The Indian government has been making efforts to stabilise the region where Muslim separatists have battled authorities in Delhi for years. The current Narendra Modi government’s decision to revoke Article 370 of the Indian Constitution which earlier gave Kashmir a special treatment and changing its status from a state to a UT have also faced a backlash in the state.
According to the Reuters report, the upcoming project will include a shopping mall and multi-purpose commercial tower in Srinagar, the summer capital of the Muslim-majority province, Emaar declared at an investment summit held in the city on Sunday (19).
The announcement comes after the Modi government said last week that Jammu and Kashmir had received investment worth Rs 15 billion (£148 million) in the first 10 months of the 2022-23 fiscal.
The efforts to woo investors in a region which has been hit by insurgency for many decades have met little success earlier.
But things might change after Emaar Properties made the move.
CEO Amit Jain told reporters that the investment would have a ripple effect, the Reuters report added.
“This is the start, we should inspire people, people should aspire to follow us. This is a one million square feet mall with 500 shops and will generate around 7,000 to 8,000 jobs,” he was quoted as saying following the ground-breaking ceremony for the “Mall of Srinagar”.
Emaar, which has built the Burj Khalifa in Dubai, is also the UAE city’s largest listed developer.
The Dubai government also owns a minority stake in the developer through its sovereign wealth fund.
Top administrator of Jammu and Kashmir Manoj Sinha said the project had infused confidence in foreign investors and would go on to bolster the region’s economy.
