Left Front govt in Kerala works on new law: Blanket ban on retail

This would be the first attempt of its kind in the country. Divakaran said the Left in Kerala doesn’t intend to draw the line for big retailers at peddling food grains, as Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee did for Bengal a few days ago. It will be a blanket ban and, according to the minister, the new legislation

will more than make up for “the lack of teeth” in the Central Essential Commodities Act.

“We don’t want to tell MNCs from Indian corporates, both are bad for the state. We don’t want to go for a conditional or limited ban because we really don’t want them here at all,” Divakaran said.

While LDF sources claim the legislation is not aimed at any big corporate in particular, Divakaran is clear that the immediate provocation is Reliance Retail. In Kochi, Reliance has already opened six of its proposed 70 supermarkets and hypermarkets in the state.

“We don’t want to invite complications by revoking licences that are already issued. But all local bodies will now be directed not to licence any more outlets. We will stop Reliance in its tracks,” Divakaran said.

Government sources pointed out that Reliance aims to have most of its outlets concentrated in the cities, not rural areas, and the Left rules all the five city corporations in the state. “So we don’t expect a problem getting them to deny licences to the retail group,” the sources said.

Not that there is any guarantee. The licence for Reliance’s six functional outlets in the state was issued by the Kochi city corporation, which is in firm CPM control. Reliance had even got a senior member of the CPM state committee and the CPM deputy mayor of the city to inaugurate two of these outlets in Kochi.

After this led to a din, the same duo inaugurated the CPM-led Kochi rally against big corporate retailers as well, a couple of days later. The embarrassed party had to finally step in and make both offer a public apology. “That is the CPM’s problem. We have no ambiguities about the issue in the CPI, or in the LDF,” Divakaran said.

The legislation has the backing of the state’s powerful traders lobby, the Vyapari Vyavasayi Ekopana Samithy. And while the CPI is putting everything behind this idea, no one expects the ban Bill to fall foul of big brother CPM either. Two days ago, CPM state secretary Pinarayi Vijayan had announced that the Left government’s policy was not to have monopoly retailers in the state, not long after his party rival and CM, VS Achuthanandan slammed corporate retailers. Even the Opposition may find it hard to oppose the Bill, after Opposition leader Oommen Chandy’s public posturing against retail groups.

Divakaran claims the government is putting things in place to make up for the absence of big retail corporates in the state. “We are going to have some 35,000 PDS shops use that space. We are going to add 17,000 more large outlets to the 3,000 that the State Civil Supplies Corporation now runs. Corporates can’t hope to tap the state’s huge rural market, the government can”.

The government has also decided to take on the corporate’s brand pull by setting up the state’s largest hypermarkets on its own, at Thiruvananthapuram, Kottayam and Kochi, Divakaran said. That is besides some 14 huge ‘People’s Bazars’ to come up in each district, selling provisions, vegetables and everything else for day-to-day living, “with appropriate price support” from the government, he said.