The Hindu : Karnataka / Bangalore News : Demand for national policy on retail trade

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Jan 02, 2008
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Karnataka

Karnataka - Bangalore

Demand for national policy on retail trade

Special Correspondent

Bangalore: The Centre should frame a national policy on retail trade that will impose restrictions on large corporates, demanded speakers at a seminar here on Tuesday.

The policy should give local stakeholder committees — comprising traders, workers and administrative authorities — the power to issue licences to open retail outlets and withdraw them in case of violations, said K.N. Umesh, State Secretary of Centre of Indian Trade Unions (CITU). There should be guidelines on where such outlets can be opened, how much space they can occupy and what products they can sell, he added. He pointed out that even in developed countries big malls and retail chains are not opened in central parts of the city. Vinod Shetty, coordinator of India FDI Watch, said that opening up the retail market to big corporates affects the livelihood of over 4 crore people in India, including traders, transporters, daily wage workers and street vendors. Destroying livelihoods to favour big business houses was a grave human rights violation, he added.

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