CHENNAI: Coming down heavily on the UPA government’s decision to open up the retail sector to Foreign Direct Investment (FDI), Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa has said that her government will not allow multi-brand global players to set up hyper markets in the State, putting in line the livelihood of millions of small-time retailers. In a strongly worded statement on Sunday, Jayalalithaa said the sudden move smacked of “overweening arrogance” of the UPA government. “While Parliament is in session, this move of the government of India to announce such a major policy decision affecting millions of people outside Parliament without even consulting the State governments is unprecedented and indicates the overweening arrogance of the UPA government,” Jayalalithaa said.Even though the policy guidelines were yet to be released by the Centre, no amount of safeguard would be enough to protect the interests of the domestic sector, she said. Jayalalithaa charged that it was “a wrong decision taken under pressure from a few retail giants, who are starved for capital infusion for their future survival.”Demanding that the Centre reverse the “ill-advised” move, Jayalalithaa said it would not serve to bring down inflation or improve market efficiency, and rather would seriously hit the domestic manufacturing and services sectors and “the retail trade will be completely taken over by the MNC-dominated big retail giants which is not good for our country.” She expressed apprehension that the move would affect the livelihood of millions of small departmental store-owners and completely destroy the unorganised retail sector within the next couple of years. “The Central government should realise that constraints on farm products, on the supply side, which is one of the contributory factors to food inflation, can’t be addressed through FDI.”
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