Dipp gets Cabinet's approval note

The Union Cabinet has sent its consent to the Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (Dipp) on opening the multi-brand retail sector to foreign direct investment (FDI), a week after the crucial decision. This will facilitate Dipp, which functions under the ministry of commerce and industry, to issue a pertinent notification.

On the flip side, for the government, a meeting between commerce and industry minister Anand Sharma and Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT) ended without any positive outcome. Sharma will be the first to peruse the Cabinet’s note, senior government officials said on Friday. The minutes of the meeting remained the same as it had been approved by the Cabinet on November 24.

“The main thing is that the language of the note should reflect the gist of the Cabinet decision,” an official involved in the process told Business Standard. “It is not mandatory that the approval note would be sent out for notification within a few days. These are sensitive matters and need to be dealt sensitively. So, sometimes it might take time.” It might, thus, come only after the current winter session of Parliament gets over on December 23.

On his part, Sharma held a series of meetings with traders and farmers to understand their problems and allay their concerns. His talks with CAIT functionaries, led by their national secretary general Praveen Khandelwal, were not fruitful.

Sharma suggested the creation of a joint panel having three government representatives and as many representatives from the traders’ side. He also asked them to give their concerns with him in a week, so as to help the government in implementing the policy. CAIT rejected them all.

The confederation’s national president, B C Bhartia, said there was no question of forming any panel or committee on the matter. “The government is forgetting that we have farmers, labourers and hawkers in our hand. They form a decisive vote-bank,” he added.

The traders have now decided to hold a peaceful protest on December 7. After that, they would strategise their next action plan during a two-day meeting of CAIT’s national governing council in Nagpur, starting December 12.

Traders, who complain they were not consulted prior to the decision, observed nation-wide protests on Wednesday.