The Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT) on Saturday strongly criticised US India Strategic Partnership Forum (USISPF) for making uncalled for statement calling recent changes made by the Government in FDI Policy in e-commerce as regressive.
It is clearly an attempt of Walmart and Amazon like companies to fire the shot on the shoulders of organisations like USISPF to pressurise the Government to bring further changes to their advantage, the CAIT said and cautioned that any change made under the undue pressure of these lobbies will be strongly and stoutly opposed by the traders of the country.
Forum president Mukesh Aghi on Friday issued a statement and hit out against FDI regulations introduced by the Government in e-commerce sector. It called the latest regulations as “regressive” and “anti-consumer”. It also said that amendments lack transparency in policy and demonstrates unpredictability.
CAIT national president BC Bhartia and Secretary General Praveen Khandelwal while strongly condemning the statement of USISPF termed it as an interference of an outside agency in internal policy matters of the government.
They said when the companies they are advocating for indulge into unhealthy business practices including exclusivelivity, predatory pricing, deep discounting and loss funding, where are these advocacy organisations. Today they are crying uselessly.
The two leaders said, “The multinational companies and big countries create international forums and under the garb of consolidation and advocacy they try to create pressure on representatives of developing countries to adopt the policies in favour of multinational companies, a live example of forthcoming meeting of World Economic Forum at Davos.
“However in a matured economy country, India will not accept any pressure which may result against livelihood of its citizens.”
India is a country where self-employment is major source of employment. In India, the retail business is conducted not by only an individual but a family as a whole. Retail trade in the country gives employment to a family and not to an individual. Along with promoter family there are 7 to 8 dependent family on that promoter of business. It is providing direct and indirect employment to about 25 per cent of Indian population.
It is Constitutional duty of any Government to protect rights of doing business and earn livelihood for its citizen. Securing boundaries of a country includes protection of its internal trade against foreign economic attack on economy of the country as well.
The CAIT added that the consumers are going to be benefited with this new policy. In many cases it has been seen that in name of discounts the effective price is much more and the consumers are not getting material at discounted price as it appears from the advertisement. MSMEs are also complaining about non-receipt of timely payment from such online companies.
It is highly regretted that powerful MNCs through their respective government try to act as a big brother and in name of consumers and farmers they try to change policies of developing countries. The CAIT is in close watch on each and every step being taken by these MNCs and their lobbyist groups to encroach upon economy of India and will take suitable steps to oppose them tooth and nail.(UNI)