Cash & Carry to get licence, FB relents after Buddha ‘sorry’

The stalemate over the future of German wholesale major Metro Cash & Carry in West Bengal is finally over with the state Agricultural Produce Marketing Committee on Sunday deciding to renew its licence by October 10.

Following a meeting of the Left Front that continued for three hours, the Forward Bloc which had threatened to resign from the Cabinet withdrew its decision. “It’s not the Chief Secretary but the APMC which will issue the licence with certain conditions. And the conditions will be decided upon at a bipartite meeting between the CPM and the Forward Bloc that would take place before October 10. In future, before permission is given to a multinational company for doing business here, it would have to be discussed at the Left Front meeting,” said Left Front chairman Biman Bose, flanked by Forward Bloc’s Ashok Ghosh and others.

On September 26, Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee had instructed Chief Secretary Amit Kiran Dev to issue orders to the APMC asking it to renew the company’s licence. Irked by the CM’s “autocratic” functioning the Forward Bloc had announced that the four Bloc ministers would boycott Writers’ Buildings from September 29.

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On Saturday, the Consul-General of Germany in Kolkata, Gunter Wehrmannsaid if Metro was not granted licence eastern India would not witness any German investment in the near future.

Ghosh said the party had softened its stand after the CM apologised. “The CM said sorry. He assured us the interests of farmers would be taken care of.”