News: PM orders a study on the impact of retail chains

(DNA 25/02/2007) New Delhi - Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has ordered a comprehensive impact assessment of the advent of large-scale retail chains, both domestic and foreign, on small businesses and shopkeepers.

Since the study will form the basis of a new retail policy, it could put a spoke in the ambitious plans of Indian business houses. This adds to the uncertainty already shrouding the entry of Wal-Mart.

In a letter to the department of industrial policy and promotion (DIPP), a copy of which is available with DNA, the PM's office has asked for a comprehensive study covering not just transnational supermarkets but major Indian business houses as well.

While Congress president Sonia Gandhi's letter to the PM last month asked merely for an assessment of the impact of the entry of multinational retailers on smaller businesses, the PM appears to have expanded the scope of this assessment.