Azad Jammu & Kashmir (AJK), which has invited $40 billion of foreign investment in hydel energy sector as a part of its energy and investment-focused strategy during FY2008-09, has a plan to provide electricity to the power-hungry Pakistan which is facing 4,000MW shortage.
"Pakistan has a shortage of 4,000MW while Azad Kashmir has the potential to generate 17,000MW of electricity, for which we have invited $40 billion foreign investment in the energy sector," Prime Minister of Azad Jammu & Kashmir (AJK) Sardar Attique Ahmed Khan told Business Recorder in an exclusive interview.
The AJK premier said his government had formulated a policy based on energy and investment for fiscal year 2008-09 under which no sales tax would be collected for 10 years on foreign investment in different energy sectors like hydel, solar, wind mill, bio diesel, fuel cell etc.
"We have the intention not only to provide electricity to Pakistan but also sell out the surplus to other regional countries like India," he added. The AJK Prime Minister said the investors would get the 10-years sales tax exemption even on the bio-products. The investment-based policy, he said, would also create employment opportunities in AJK, which would ultimately help the government alleviate the menace of poverty in the region.
He said some foreign investors were showing interest in response to his government's incentives in the energy sector. A Donors' Conference, to be held next month in AJK, would also focus on this matter, he added. On the political front, the premier said he was trying hard to convince Islamabad for associating a representative from AJK in the Sindh government as, he said, 2.1 million displaced Kashmiris must have a representation in the province.
To a query on the hurdles in the implementation of United Nations' 1948 resolution on Indian occupied Kashmir (IoK) the AJK premier said: "Right now the difficulty lies in the presence of mistrust, sense of victory and defeat and the money being spent by Pakistan and India over this dispute."
He said successive governments in Pakistan and India had persistently been striving to resolve the longstanding dispute which, he said, has become more "complex" with the passage of time. Khan said a non-serious attitude of New Delhi in terms of fulfilling its pledges was another major setback to the long-awaited peaceful resolution of IoK issue.
Referring to other national and international issues, like Freedom Movement in the SubContinent from 1857 to 1947, Good Friday Agreement of Northern Ireland etc, the AJK prime minister said the Kashmir issue would, however, take some time to be resolved.
Urging a negotiated settlement of the Kashmir issue, he said despite the existence of UN observers around 0.8 million Indian occupation forces were still busy in committing a state-sponsored terrorism against the innocent and unarmed people of IoK. Demanding a nuclear-free zone status for Kashmir, the AJK premier urged Islamabad and New Delhi not to use nuclear weapons in the region.
To a query he said his government had no controversy with the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) which, he said, was a national level party and "would behave responsibly in all situations". When asked about MQM's protest on his arrival in Pakistan, the AJK premier said the protest was held by a few youth, who would soon be disowned by the "mature" leadership of the Movement.
Attique Khan was optimistic about the present Pakistan People's Party-led government's policy towards IoK, saying that the leadership of the party would follow in the footsteps of its founding leader Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto who was a strong supporter of Kashmiris.
He, however, claimed: "Now the Kashmir issue does not need the governments but the governments need to address it and if they don't they will have to answer their people." Rejecting the impression that political parties in Kashmir were lacking a central leadership, Khan said the All Parties Hurriyat Conference (APHC) was their real representative body.
While developing national consensus on all issues was difficult in the wake of unabated human rights violations in IoK "all the parties are unanimous that India should get out", he added. To a query on political stability of the AJK government, the prime minister said he could not claim perfection but some political figures like Barrister Sultan Mehmood were creating problems.
"He has a short history of politics in which he went to various parties... he held meetings with Amin Fahim and Chaudhry Shujaat and now he is talking to Nawaz League," he said.
When asked why infrastructure development in IoK was better than that of Azad Kashmir, the AJK PM claimed that road infrastructure in his state was even better than what it is in Pakistan. Citing the decades old Indian occupation as a major reason for underdevelopment in Kashmir, he said the October 8 earthquake had devastated 7,000 kilometres of roads in AJK.