The Walmart-Flipkart deal of around Rs. 1.1 lakh crores will see an agitation on a nation-wide scale as trader’s body CAIT on Wednesday announced that they will launch a 90-day long nationwide agitation against it starting from September 15 starting from the national capital. The trader’s association also called for a Bharat Trade Bandh on September 28.

“We are intensifying our opposition to the Walmart-Flipkart deal and foreign direct investment (FDI) in retail. We have called for a Bharat Trade Bandh on 28th of this month on this issue and are launching a 90-day nationwide agitation from September 15, from Delhi,” the Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT) said in a release.

The trader’s body is against the deal of USD 16 billion with US retail giant Walmart acquiring 77 percent state in homegrown retailer Flipkart. A petition too was field by the body in National Company Law Appellate Tribunal (NCLAT) against the Competition Commission of India’s decision to approve the deal.

Earlier to that, CAIT secretary general Praveen Khandelwal had said that the e-commerce marketplace changed in a great way to an extent that many e-commerce companies indulge in malpractices like offer products at high discounts, loss funding and predatory type of pricing.

Khandelwal also pointed out that the deal comes out at a time when there is no state-policy for e-commerce, it would become a cakewalk for Walmart to circumvent the FDI policy very easily with Press Note No.3 of 2016. The commerce and industry ministry notify FDI policies by the way of press notes.

Press Note 3 was released in the year 2016 and enlists guidelines for FDI in the e-commerce sector. It also clearly stated that there is no place for discounting and that no inventory ownership directly or indirectly is allowed by e-commerce marketplaces.

Even though the deal seems to be profitable for the Indians with such big brand opening up its market in our country by investing heavily, but the negative effect is that it is actually an attempt of monopoly over the Indian market and this will result in polarization of the market. The small dealer will feel the heat once such giant e-marketplaces come to play their games in our home country.

Once there was a time when we had to suffer a lot due to British monopolies resulting in the colonization of India and this time too there seems to be no escape for the poor except to suffer under such conditions of competition.

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