Bangalore: As many states including UP and Tamil Nadu raise the red flag against Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in multi-brand retail, its speculated that nearly half of 53 cities may bang door on global chains.  Going by the 2011 data on Census of India website, 25 out of 46 cities with around 10 lakh population, are doubtful to allow like of Walmart, Carrefour and Tesco to open stores.  However, the government in a statement said 53 cities will benefit from the new policy.
 

Mayawati, Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal CM, Mamta Banerjee, Bihar’s CM Nitish Kumar, all stood up against the latest FDI liberalization move from the UPA. Gujrat’s CM Narendra Modi, is happy and welcomed the opening up.

Congress ruled states like Maharashtra, Rajasthan, Andhra Pradesh and Haryana will welcome foreign retailers, but in Punjab, Shiromani Akali Dal has supported the move.

Anand Sharma, Commerce and Industry Minister, said, states like Punjab, Maharashtra and Rajasthan are supporting UPA’s reform move.

Cities like Bangalore, Chennai, Ahmedabad and Vadodara will put up the closed sign as the retail trade is state’s subject and in order to open the stores, it requires clearances from municipal bodies, registration under the Shops & Establishments Act and the Sales Department apart from support from the district administration.

Chennai, Madurai and Coimbatore will have to the face the impact of Jayalalitha’s opposition to multi-brand retails. She said in a statement, "The purported intention of the government of India seems to be to bring more foreign investment into the country to improve market efficiency and bring down double-digit inflation prevailing in the country, mainly due to the series of policy blunders made by the Congress-led UPA government at the Centre. Does our nation lack such resources or the technology to deal with such problems? The central government should realize that constraints on farm products, on the supply side, which is one of the contributory factors to food inflation, cannot be addressed through the FDI route, but only by squarely addressing the infrastructural constraints through appropriate policy support.”

Uttar Pradesh is likely to face the biggest impact as it has seven listed cities like Meerut, Ghaziabad, Agra, Lucknow, Kanpur, Allahabad and Varanasi and the state has already made it clear that it will stay out of bounds. Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh have four states each. Despite the huge prospective that middle class India offers to international chains dealing with decreasing demand in their home markets, the global giants are still going to stay interested. Maharashtra will emerge out as the most attractive destination given the fact that it is a middle class dominated area with cities like Mumbai and Pune. The foreign retailers are likely to open up their stores in 8 towns and cities. The government feels, sooner or later, the states would recognize the huge opportunity that the modern retail format offers with foreign participation.