The first meeting of the Confederation of Indian Industry, Ladakh Council was held on April 10.

Nawang Thinles, Chairman, CII Ladakh Council highlighted various difficulties faced by businesses during the nationwide lockdown caused by the Coronavirus pandemic, be it in the Tourism sector, Infrastructure & Construction, Supply chain & Logistics and others.

He appreciated the UT administration for tackling the pandemic. 

Nawang Thinles laid out the plans for the year ahead including capacity building program for Engineers & Civil Contractors planned for May ending, if the situation permits, painting competition planned in schools in June to celebrate CII@125 years, roundtable discussion on Agri-Food Processing planned for July.

Further planning such as workshops on TDS/GST in August, awareness session on Export & Import is planned with Directorate General of Foreign Trade and Business to Business festival is planned outside Ladakh for winters. 

Mohd. Aneyes highlighted the issues faced by the tourism industry. He emphasized on the short season Ladakhi have for business and said it would be difficult to repay the loans now. He suggested to take-up a CII delegation to the government for a bailout package, especially for tourism & hotel industry, since the majority of Ladakhis depend on it. 

Jigmet Angchuk said that the current situation of lockdown due to Covid-19 had put a big dent on the economy of Ladakh. He said that even though the situation may be controlled in a month or so, it will still take more than 1-1.5 months to collect resources for doing business. 

He stressed on various packages being announced by the central ministries like GST refund and other measures but said some special package needs to be announced for Ladakh. All other members also expressed their concern.

Surinder Pal Singh assured the members that some representation to the Central Ministries would be taken-up in the coming days and Ladakh will find special mention in it. He assured the members that CII foundation was working to extend any helping hand possible.