MUZAFFARABAD, Sept 25: AJK Prime Minister Sardar Sikandar Hayat on Sunday announced that his government may offer tax exemption for up to eight years and free provision of land to the private sector for development of tourism. Speaking at a ceremony at the end of the three-day Hamma Yaran-i-Bahisht tourism festival, he said the government was determined to offer maximum possible incentives, like tax exemption, to the private sector to attract it to the area.

“We can also give our rest houses on lease and even go for providing land free of cost to those willing to construct lodging facilities for tourists,” he said.

He urged affluent Kashmiris to invest in their area and make it prosperous.

The prime minister said road infrastructure played a key role in promotion of tourism and he had focused his attention on construction of roads in every part of the state.

He said his government had ordered construction of 2,704km roads by public works and 2,100km by the local government and rural development department, of which almost 80 per cent would be completed during the current year.

The prime minister earlier distributed shields among the participants, most of them AJK officials, for making the festival a success. On the occasion, he said in a lighter vein about the government officials: “If ever they do anything good they think they have done a great favour to the state.”

He complained that the officials concerned had not acted on his repeated suggestions for development of some tourist resorts along the Kohala-Muzaffarabad road.

AJK Chief Secretary Kashif Murtaza said one-window operation would be launched in his office to facilitate serious investors. He said development of tourism required involvement of every department.