FDI IN RETAIL: CAIT to observe 2013 as retail democracy year

New Delhi, January 5, 2013: Senior parliamentarian and Chairman of Public Accounts Committee of the Parliament Dr. Murali Manohar Joshi today slammed the UPA government for allowing FDI in Retail Trade of India and said that it is nothing but to mortgage the Indian retail trade at the hands of global retailers.

Dr. Joshi was speaking at a " Trader's Conference" here at Varanasi today held by the UP State Unit of the Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT), an apex body of the trading Community of the country.

Addressing the Conference Dr. Joshi in unquivocal terms said that if in Lok Sabha elections in 2014, the NDA is voted to power, it will reject the current notification of allowing FDI in Retail Trade.

CAIT National Secretary General Praveen Khandelwal and National Secretary Ramesh Khanna, New Delhi, its National Senior Vice Chairman L. K. Jhunjhunwala, Lucknow and CAIT UP State President Sanjay Gupta, Conference Conveners Mahendra Goel, Moharram Ali and Vibhu Rajpuria and Tilak Raj Arora, Ghaziabad, attended the conference.

Several other organisation opposing FDI in Retail including Swadeshi Jagran Manch also participated in the meeting. Trade leaders from different districts including Allahabad, Mirzapur, Mughalsarai, Pratapgarh, Faizabad, Banda, Basti, Chitrakoot, Azamgarh, Gonda etc. participated in the daylong conference.

Addressing the Conference on "FDI in Retail" at Varanasi, Dr. Joshi lambasted the UPA Government said since its policy would shatter the Indian economy besides causing unemployment. He warned that Walmart and other retail giants procure about 80,000 different products manufactured by nearly 6,000 Chinese companies at cheaper rates and sell the same in India at higher prices and ultimately the Indian consumer will be hit hard.

Dr. Joshi also dismissed the statement of Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh that state governments were free to decide on the entry of Walmart. He said that as per the World Trade Organisation norms, the global retailers including could set up their business at any place in the country without any restrictions. He said that the Centre would be have no control over the foreign companies. He said that the FDI in infrastructure might be tolerated to some extent. But the FDI in agriculture and retail sectors was highly unacceptable. He alleged that the country was being pushed into slavery in the name of modernisation.

Addressing the participants at the Conference CAIT National Secretary General Praveen Khandelwal cast reflections on the integrity of the UPA Government since the facts and figures quoted in support of their decision to allow FDI in retail, the government has misled the country and he even challenged the government to hold an "open debate" on this issue at any public platform.

Khandelwal said that different stakeholders of retail trade including farmers, hawkers, transporters, labour unions, traders, consumers, cooperatives and self employed groups have formed a joint coalition "Khudra FDI Virodhi Rashtriya Morcha" which has already launched a two months " Retail Democracy Movement beginning 1st January,2013 and will be taken upto 28th February all over the country. On 7th March, 2013, when Parliament will be in session, the KFVRM will hold a "massive rally" in New Delhi.

He also said that all those parties who have supported FDI in Retail will be strongly opposed by retail stakeholders in the forthcoming Assembly elections in 2013 and Lok Sabha elections in 2014 and people of these groups will go to even polling booth level to impress upon the citizens not to vote for such political parties

During the two months Retail Democracy Movement the organisations of different retail stakeholders will hold jointly and severally “Sampark Yatra” for mass awareness, “Chaupal Charcha”, a programme to reach out to rural areas, demonstration, dharna, torch procession, FDI effigy burning together with other democratic form of protests all over the country . A unique protest in form of ‘chain of cartoons’ will be adopted to pin point the issue while relevant "Hindi phrases" will be made alive as one of the protest mode. A special working team of computer professionals has been constituted to make optimum use of social media sites like Twitter and facebook to generate public opinion and to align more and more people directly with the cause. The delegations of KFVRM will also meet leaders of all political parties and chief Ministers of different States to muster their continued support to its national movement.