After Maya, Jaya too will not allow giants to set shop in state

After the Uttar Pradesh (UP) government, Tamil Nadu has said it would not allow hypermarkets in the state.

Foreign investment is not the solution to market inefficiency, the southern state’s chief minister J Jayalalithaa said today, adding that Indian resources and technology should have been used to address efficiency.

Foreign direct investment in retail would not address food inflation, which was the “result of constraints on farm products on the supply side”, and “needs infrastructural development through appropriate policy support”, she added.

Only recently had UP chief minister and Bahujan Samaj Party supremo Mayawati expressed reservation against the Congress-led government’s proposed FDI-in-retail policy. Today, the AIADMK leader flagged cartelisation and predatory pricing as the two most important dangers of the proposed entry of foreign multinationals in the country’s retail sector.

Crucially, her objections to the policy are virtually a reiteration of the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP’s) line. However, while the Opposition National Democratic Alliance led-party has stopped short of pledging a reversal of policy if it comes to power, Jayalalithaa has asked the government to reverse the policy.

These days, the BJP-ruled states are discussing whether accepting and implementing FDI in retail will help or hinder administration.

So far, no one view has emerged in the party. Jayalalithaa, thus, becomes the first off the block to say hat her government “will not allow” the multi-brand global players as permitted under the new policy to set up their hyper markets in Tamil Nadu.