IndiaRetailBiz

The Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT), a body of traders in the unorganised sector, is seeking immediate implementation of the recommendations made by the Parliamentary Committee on retail trade.

“The recommendations of the Parliamentary Standing Committee headed by Dr Murli Manohar Joshi laid down in Parliament few days back for imposing blanket ban on MNCs and big corporate houses in the retail trade should be adopted by the Government as it is a unanimous document of the Committee comprising members of all political parties,” said Mr Praveen Khandelwal, Secretary-General, CAIT.

According to Khandelwal, the report will prove to be an instrumental document for protecting indigenous trade and employment of crores of people. The report, it may be recalled, has warned of ’far reaching consequences’ of ‘big’ investment on retail trade in India.

CAIT is also asking the government to announce a national trade policy for retail trade in the Budget being presented by the Union Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee on the 6th July, 2009.

The traders body is also seeking the formation of a National Commission to study the intricacies and issues facing the retail trade in India. CAIT has demanded a proper representation of traders and other retail related sections in the Commission.

The committeee of 40 parliamentarians from all political parties headed by Murli Manohar Joshi, ex-HRD Minister and Senior BJP leader, in its report “Foreign and Domestic Investment in Retail Sector” has sought a ”blanket ban” on Foreign Direct Investment (FDI), as well as investment by heavy weight domestic corporates, in retail sector. The report tabled in the parliament about a fortnight ago has also demanded scrapping the policy of issuing free licences to foreign retailer for setting up ’cash & carry’ wholesale business in India.

It may be relevant to mention in this context here that acoording to the current government policy, while there is a complete ban on FDI in multi-brand front-end retail, there are no restrictions whatsoever on foreign investment in setting up ‘cash & carry’ format wholesale stores in India. Taking advantage of this policy large MNC retailers like the world’s largest US-based Walmart and the world’s fourth largest Germany-based Metro AG have already set shop in India by opening C&C stores either on their own or in partnership with local parties. The other two biggies of the retail industry in the world, namely, Carrefour of France and Tesco of UK are also in the process of foraying into the country through this format.