Left Front govt in Kerala works on new law: Blanket ban on retail

CPI leader and Food minister C Divakaran, the prime mover behind the new legislation, told The Indian Express that the Law department is doing the final vetting of the Bill, The Kerala State Essential Commodities Act —2007. The LDF is expected to clear it on Tuesday.

This would be the first attempt of its kind in the country. Divakaran said the Left in Kerala doesn’t intend to draw the line for big retailers at peddling food grains, as Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee did for Bengal a few days ago. It will be a blanket ban and, according to the minister, the new legislation

will more than make up for “the lack of teeth” in the Central Essential Commodities Act.

While LDF sources claim the legislation is not aimed at any big corporate in particular, Divakaran is clear that the immediate provocation is Reliance Retail. In Kochi, Reliance has already opened six of its proposed 70 supermarkets and hypermarkets in the state.

“We don’t want to invite complications by revoking licences that are already issued. But all local bodies will now be directed not to licence any more outlets. We will stop Reliance in its tracks,” Divakaran said.

Government sources pointed out that Reliance aims to have most of its outlets concentrated in the cities, not rural areas, and the Left rules all the five city corporations in the state. “So we don’t expect a problem getting them to deny licences to the retail group,” the sources said.

Not that there is any guarantee. The licence for Reliance’s six functional outlets in the state was issued by the Kochi city corporation, which is in firm CPM control. Reliance had even got a senior member of the CPM state committee and the CPM deputy mayor of the city to inaugurate two of these outlets in Kochi.

After this led to a din, the same duo inaugurated the CPM-led Kochi rally against big corporate retailers as well, a couple of days later. The embarrassed party had to finally step in and make both offer a public apology....