American retail giant, Walmart’s recent venture of billions of dollars for around 77% stake in Indian e-commerce player Flipkart is reportedly the world’s largest e-commerce deal ever, over which the Confederation of All India Traders a.k.a CAIT has launched a 90-day protest called “National Rath Yatra” or “Sampoorna Kranti Rath Yatra” to oppose the deal and foreign direct investment (FDI) in retail.
With this deal the American giant Walmart is likely to revolutionize Indian retail with low-priced products and a vast variety of consumer goods giving a direct threat to its rival, Amazon and the Indian traders. As a result of the tug of war with cut-price game between Walmart and Amazon, the merchandise prices in India are ensured to sink even lower.
The CAIT stated that the door to door protest starting from Red Fort, New Delhi will cover all the states over the next three months concluding on 16th December at the Ramlila Ground, New Delhi.
According to CAIT secretary General Praveen Khandelwal, the campaign will also be addressing the issues like the need for simplification of GST, robust and transparent e-commerce policy, adoption and acceptance of digital payments, easy access to finance to small businesses through MUDRA Yojana.
The organization is further calling for a “Bharat Trade Bandh” on 28th September to protest against the Walmart-Flipkart deal and FDI in retail and in support nearly seven crores establishments are expected to down their shutters.
The protest seems to be an outcome of the declination of CAIT’s earlier filed petition in National Company Law Appellate Tribunal (NCLAT) demanding the reversal of Competition Commission of India’s approval to Walmart-Flipkart deal.