NEW DELHI: The government on Friday opened fresh channels of negotiation with traders and farmers even as the opposition accused the UPA of compromising the interests of these two groups while allowing global retail chains to set up shop in the country.
During a meeting brokered by Sandeep Dikshit, an MP from Delhi, commerce & industry minister Anand Sharma told a group of traders that the government was unwilling to go back on last week's Cabinet decision, although he asked representatives from the community that they should come back with their concerns and the ministry would try to clear the doubts.
Sharma plans to follow up with a meeting with farmer groups on Saturday to try and push through the government's argument.
The traders, who called for a nation-wide bandh on Thursday under the aegis of the Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT), said they would decide further course of action at Nagpur on December 12-13. "They expressed some concerns which we felt are clearly addressed in the policy... The minister also made it very clear that there is no exercise in rollback," industry secretary P K Chaudhery told TOI.
But traders did not appear entirely convinced. "In principle, we are against FDI in retail trade," CAIT secretary general Praveen Khandelwal said after the meeting.
Separately, Chaudhery is writing to state chief secretaries and the government has also asked industry chambers to communicate with entrepreneurs across the country to explain the benefits of opening up.
Source : timesofindia.indiatimes.com