BENGALURU: Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah on Saturday urged industry leaders to establish their “second centres” in J&K, pitching enterprise as the defining productive asset of the 21st century and arguing that entrepreneurship, not government employment, must drive the Union Territory’s next phase of economic growth.
Delivering the keynote address at the IIMBue 2026 Global Leadership Conclave here, Abdullah said governments can create conditions for enterprises to flourish, but lasting prosperity ultimately depends on private investment, innovation and confidence. “We have become good at producing graduates.
We have not become good at giving them somewhere to use what they have,” Abdullah said, inviting businesses to look beyond established hubs such as Bengaluru. “What more do we need to show before you put your second centre in a place like ours? Not a polite answer, not an encouraging one either – the real-world answer,” he said.
Describing enterprise as the modern equivalent of land ownership, Abdullah said earlier generations expanded economic opportunity through agrarian reforms, while today’s challenge is to broaden access to entrepreneurship through knowledge, technology, energy and digital connectivity.
"No society has ever employed itself into prosperity,” he said, adding that governments would be judged less by the schemes they administer than by the number of people who go on to build enterprises of their own.
Abdullah argued that India’s economic transformation cannot be viewed through the experience of a few metropolitan centres alone. “Bengaluru is in one orbit. Kupwara in North Kashmir is another. Every place still waiting for its orbit to be raised is moving at a different speed,” he said, adding that changing a society’s long-term trajectory requires institutions that reward ordinary effort over decades rather than short-term policy interventions.
Abdullah said productive assets of the current century are no longer land or physical capital, but enterprise enabled by technology and connectivity. Unlike land reforms, he said, entrepreneurship cannot simply be distributed through legislation but must be built through institutions that ensure predictability, transparency and fairness.
He cited the government’s Yuva Udyami Vikas Abhiyan initiative as an attempt to identify entrepreneurial potential across villages and towns based on evidence rather than assumptions.
Highlighting opportunities in horticulture, handicrafts, tourism, hydropower and knowledge economy, he said J&K should compete through quality and specialisation rather than scale.
Improved rail connectivity, digital infrastructure and branding, he added, could help integrate the region more closely with national and global markets. He said governments can build roads, schools and power systems, but confidence is the real infrastructure that shapes investment decisions.