Firdous Hassan
Srinagar: Jammu and Kashmir has fared poorly on NITI Aayog’s Export Preparedness Index 2020 achieving 36th rank, below Nagaland. and Andaman and Nicobar islands.
Experts attribute the lowest rank to the lack of infrastructure, poor policies and uncertain situation in Jammu and Kashmir,
While all other states have shown a remarkable performance, Jammu and Kashmir ranked 36 with just 12.27 points much lower than Nagaland (29.0) and, Andaman and Nicobar (17.65).
Gujarat at 75.19 emerged as the leading state followed by Maharashtra (75.14) and Tamil Nadu (64.93).
NITI Aayog in collaboration with IFC’s Institute of Competitiveness released the Export Preparedness Index 2020 on August 27. This is the first-ever report to examine the preparedness and performance of Indian states, UTs to identify challenges, opportunities, effective of government policies on export business.
The index ranked states on four key pillars: Policy, business ecosystem, export ecosystem and export performance. Policy pillar, which shows the policy measures adopted to promote export comprises two sub-pillars: Export Promotion Policy and Institutional Framework
This Business Ecosystem pillar sheds light on attracting investment and fosters growth through good governance and balances between the levels of protection and incentives. Export ecosystem explains infrastructure in place and export performance shows the quantity and level of goods exported.
Jammu and Kashmir, according to the report, has failed miserably in all these parameters and have ranked among bottom performing states.
In the index’s Policy pillar, the state achieved 33 ranks with 0.0 scores out of 100. Policy pillar refers to the policies in place to promote the export business in a state.
In the Business Ecosystem pillar, J&K has settled at 35th number with 14.92 scores. In Export Ecosystem and Export Performance pillars, the UT ranked 28 (5.63) and 29 (25.87) respectively.
The report has highlighted that businessmen in J&K lacked valid policy, facilitating measures, marketing support from the government.
It also revealed that a zero rank is achieved by the UT in labor reforms, number of investment summits, power cost, and single window clearance though ease of doing business and innovative capacity scored 33.33 and 13.24 points.
The report has exposed the lack of agri-export zones, transport connectivity including air cargo and banking facilities.
Kashmir Chamber of Commerce and Industries (KCCI) said export business especially carpet has got severely affected in the last one year and fell by 50 percent.
It estimated that the losses to various sectors in the valley have mounted to over Rs 40,000 cores.
The valley’s business sector is in doldrums since the last one year as the unit holders got fewer work days due to the shutdown after abrogation of article 370 and outbreak of Covid-19.
On an average daily, the business community claims that the valley was facing a loss of over Rs 100 crore, with tourism and hospitality sector becoming its first causality.
