Bengaluru: Chief Minister Omar Abdullah on Saturday said no society had ever become prosperous solely through government employment or public expenditure, stressing that enterprise is what converts opportunity into prosperity.
Delivering the keynote address at the inaugural session of the IIM Bangalore Alumni Association here, Abdullah said Jammu and Kashmir’s experience showed that societies changed course when institutions altered the incentives that shaped ordinary people’s decisions over time.
He said Jammu and Kashmir was often discussed through the language of politics, security and geography, but those dimensions obscured another equally important story — one of human development and resilience despite structural constraints.
“If you were shown only the physical geography of Jammu and Kashmir, you would predict an economy constrained by mountains, high transport costs, dispersed settlements, difficult logistics and limited industrialisation,” he said, while noting that life expectancy in Jammu and Kashmir remained among the highest in the country despite those limitations.
“The answer I came to believe lay less in any single programme than in institutions. They shaped the incentives that guided people’s decisions. Development is rarely the consequence of one government or one budget. It is the slow work of institutions that determines whether ordinary effort is rewarded,” Abdullah said.
He said the defining productive asset of the 21st century was no longer land but enterprise supported by knowledge, technology, energy and connectivity.
“Broadening access to enterprise is the modern equivalent of broadening access to land,” he said, adding that the government’s Mission Yuva initiative sought to identify aspiring entrepreneurs and connect them with finance, markets and mentorship.
Abdullah said digital connectivity alone would not automatically reduce regional disparities, as technology had so far concentrated opportunities instead of dispersing them.
He said Jammu and Kashmir should build on its strengths in horticulture, handicrafts, tourism and hydropower through better logistics, branding and digital commerce to create greater value rather than simply increase volume.
Inviting industry leaders to invest in the union territory, Abdullah said, “What would you need to see before you put your second centre in a place like ours? Not a polite answer, not an encouraging one either — the real one.”
He added, “We cannot outbid Bengaluru, and no place has ever generated that kind of momentum from a standing start. What a region in our position can do is pass close enough to something already moving to take a share of that motion.”
During an interaction after the address, Abdullah said governments should focus on long-term institutional reforms rather than headline-grabbing announcements to ensure inclusive growth.
Asked which sectors held the greatest untapped potential in Jammu and Kashmir, he said agriculture and allied activities offered the biggest opportunities.
“Actually, the largest part of our economy is not tourism. It’s not handicrafts, and it’s not technology. It’s actually agriculture. Jammu and Kashmir is an agrarian society,” he said.
Pointing to low levels of value addition, Abdullah said only seven percent of Jammu and Kashmir’s milk production was processed.
He said dairy processing, post-harvest management, diversification beyond apples and the cultivation of crops such as blueberries offered significant growth opportunities.
Responding to a question on football, Abdullah said the sport enjoys immense popularity in Jammu and Kashmir.
“We play more football than we play cricket… I think there is definitely talent and there’s ability,” he said, adding that reviving football initiatives in the region was something “we definitely like to push.”
