Rajnath demands restriction on corporate retailers

To muster support in their nationwide agitation against the entry of big corporate houses in retail trade, a delegation of the Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT)

today met BJP president Rajnath Singh and handed over a memorandum demanding the immediate restriction on corporate retailers. CAIT secretary general Praveen Khandelwal led the delegation. Trade leaders like- Murli Mani, Ramesh Khanna, Satish Garg, Vijay Pal, Shyam Sharma, Ramesh Kapoor, Hari Om Goel and others joined the delegation.

Assuring BJP’s support to the trading community, Rajnath Singh said that the BJP was opposed to the entry of big industrial houses in retail trade. He added that the party considered that such a move would adversely affect crores of small retailers and other sections of society across country and, would result in mass unemployment.

The interests of small shopkeepers must be protected at all levels. Singh lauded the trading community’s role in bringing the economic and social development of the country and termed it as the ‘real backbone’ of the nation’s economy.

He regretted over the government’s approach in ignoring issues concerning domestic trade. He said that the BJP would not hesitate to raise its voice in favour of traders and would join them.

Earlier, in its memorandum, the CAIT had revealed the operation philosophy of multinational retailers. It had said that given their global outsourcing skills these companies would use their pockets and indulge in ‘predatory pricing’ to crush any sort of competition from small retailers and, once the competition is driven away, the prices are jacked up to hit the consumer.

Not only traders, but people of other sectors including, employees, farm labourers, transport, consumer cooperative societies, commission agents, small and medium scale industry etc would also be affected and, therefore, big corporate houses should be kept outside the retail trade.