NEW DELHI: Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Saturday appreciated Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah for his "focused" and "determined" approach to restore the Union territory's economy following a major setback to J-K's tourism sector.
Reflecting on the nation's economic journey since 2019, marked by a sequence of unprecedented global and domestic challenges, the finance minister highlighted the specific efforts underway in Jammu and Kashmir.
Without naming Pakistan, she said the country had trouble "with our borders which has always been both through the state actors and non-state actors", and referred to Jammu and Kashmir.
"This time you saw what happened, particularly at a time when Jammu and Kashmir was coming around, the economy was picking up under the Central rule," Sitharaman said at the Hindustan Times Leadership Summit.
The Centre had actually gone into the granular details of looking at Jammu and Kashmir's economy, "removing the undergrowth and really pushing it up so that it becomes buoyant", she added.
"The restoration of the J-K Bank is something which the country can be proud of, the way in which J-K's economy revived...," she said, citing the revival of the local economy before it took a "major hit" due to external factors that brought the crucial tourism industry to a standstill.
"I must appreciate the chief minister of J-K who met me twice, focused on restoring the economy after the tourism sector came to a standstill," Sitharaman said, in a veiled reference to the April 22 attack in Pahalgam when Pakistani terrorists shot dead 26 people, mainly tourists.
The finance minister was replying to a question on the resilience of the Indian economy amid a turbulent global landscape.