Govt yet to take a call on retail FDI

NEW DELHI: Faced with a frontal attack from the Left parties and the NDA in Parliament, over moves to open up the retail sector, the UPA government, on Tuesday attempted to blunt their opposition claiming it did not have a policy on retail FDI as yet.

Replying to a short duration discussion in the upper house on Tuesday, commerce minister Kamal Nath struck a conciliatory note, declaring the government to be in no hurry to announce such a measure, but did not foreclose the possibility of such a policy being announced in the future.

In a statement, that came days after the Left and the opposition parties attacked the government on the issue in Rajya Sabha, the commerce minister sought to assure the two groups that the government was only ���looking at��� the proposal and was not about to announce a policy immediately.

���There is a presumption that the government is on the fast track to announce this (allowing FDI in retail). We have been studying this for two years,��� Mr Nath said.

Responding to CPM leader Sitaram Yechury���s observation that the move would go against the National Common Minimum Programme (NCMP), Mr Nath stressed, the government was committed to objectives laid down in the document relating to increased investment, employment generation and technology upgradation.

���I reiterate and reassure that our government is committed to the NCMP and to employment generation, not displacement (of those employed in the domestic retail sector),��� Mr Nath said.

Pointing out that ���Wal Mart phobia��� should not ���mislead��� anyone, Mr Nath said it was more a question of big retailers versus small retailers as a number of Indian corporates were also entering the field.

During the course of the debate, Mr Yechury, BJP���s Murli Manohar Joshi, as well as SP and TDP members and Congress���s Arjun Sengupta had raised concerns about the move leading to unemployment. Mr Nath, however, argued in his reply that all of retail trade could not be clubbed under one umbrella.

He said, various aspects of the sector like electronics, sports, fashion and food, need to be examined thoroughly and pointed that fruits and vegetables in the country rotted due to lack of any back-end support like cold chains.

Replying to a point raised by BJP leader Arun Jaitley about how retail FDI could serve as a vital bargaining chip for negotiations on services in the WTO, Mr Nath said India���s offer on services made no mention of FDI in retail.

However, several attempts by the BJP to get the minister to assure the house that the government would take the Parliament in confidence before announcing the retail FDI policy, failed. As did Mr Yechury���s demand that the minister give an assurance that the policy would be dropped altogether if Mr Nath���s ���study��� proved that employment would be hit.

���We���re looking at various models (of allowing FDI in the retail sector). All variations will be taken into account, when a policy is being framed,��� Mr Nath said, concluding his speech. At the beginning of his reply, he reminded the BJP that the previous NDA government was ready to go ahead with the move.