OUR CORRESPONDENT / NEW DELHI
The Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT) will hold protest Dharna across India on 2nd July in protest against Walmart Flipkart Deal. It has decided to hold protest at 1000 places in different cities in different States.
Ever since and even before the deal was announced of Walmart spending over $16 billion for a 77 per cent stake in Flipkart, the road to the takeover of India’s biggest online marketplace has been quite bumpy. While back in Bentonville, Walmart’s senior management immediately started feeling the heat of its decision to spend billions on a firm yet to make profits, trade bodies in India started filing one petition after another with almost all relevant agencies in the country.
Organised by trade body Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT), the protest is likely to draw participation from the Swadeshi Jagran Manch (SJM), a number of farmer rights bodies, and smaller trader unions. As many as 1,000 simultaneous protests are planned in which more than 700,000 people are likely to take part, CAIT said.
The CAIT has demanded the Government to reject the deal and frame an e commerce policy and a Regulatory Authority for e Commerce to regulate & monitor
CAIT National President Mr. B.C. Bhartia & Secretary General Mr. Praveen Khandelwal said that the e-commerce market in India which remains very critical since its inception in the Country due to ill designed business practices adopted by various leading E Commerce players with a single motto of controlling and dominating retail trade by offering deep discounts and predatory pricing has vitiated the basic fundamentals of e-commerce and in the absence of any policy both in e-commerce and retail trade and easily circumventing the law,
They further said that e-commerce platforms are grossly and openly flouting Press No.3 of FDI Policy issued on 29th March,2016 which restrains e commerce companies for influencing the prices and make responsible for creating an even level playing filed but despite several complaints Government choose to remain a mute spectator giving them an open play ground to play the game with their own rules.
In the wake of current situation, the CAIT has demanded that till the time the e commerce policy is formulated, strict directions should be issued to adhere to Press Note No.3 and implement the same in toto. To monitor the same a Special Task Force should be constituted with Officials and representative of trade & e commerce platforms. Further, we should be made part of the formulation of e commerce policy.