MEASURES TO FIX EXISTING PERILS AMONG VARIOUS SECTIONS OF PEOPLE REGARDING

FDI IN RETAIL
*** NEED FOR FDI IN AGRICULTURE SECTOR FOR INPUT SUPPLIES, BACK END INFRASTRUCTURE CREATION

PRADEEP KUMAR KUNCHE kunchepk@gmail.com, pradeepkunche.blogspot.in www.scribd/pradeep_kunche Page 1 of 17

Think Social Engineering Think Me

 INTRODUCTION MEASURES TO FIX EXISTING PERILS AMONG VARIOUS SECTIONS OF PEOPLE REGARDING FOREIGN DIRECT INVESTMENT IN RETAIL SECTOR IN A WIN-WIN STRATEGY FOR THE PEOPLE AS WELL AS THE INVESTOR NEED FOR PRIVATE INVESTMENT; INCLUDING FDI IN AGRICULTURE SECTOR FOR PROVIDING CHEAPER INPUTS LIKE WATER, FERTILIZERS AND LARGER STORAGE FACILITIES GODOWNS FOR FERTILIZERS, SILO BINS FOR STORAGE OF FOOD GRAINS, COLD STORAGES FOR STORAGE OF VEGETABLES AND FRUITS- APART FROM FDI IN RETAIL WHICH HAS LIMITED TO THEIR INDIVIDUAL ORGANISATIONAL USE & BENEFIT

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INTRODUCTION Since Government of India is currently moving towards organized retail expansion, especially in the food and grocery segments which account for nearly 60 percent of total retail sales in India, which have been growing at annual rates between 16 and 50 percent over the past few years. Also the reports of surveys of Planet Retail 2008, shows that the top 10 Indian organized food and grocery retailers grew at the rate of 72.4 percent from 2002 to 2007, it is mainly due to the patronages of the urban people, especially the working class population as the multi brand retailers provide the graded and cleaned, ready for use food grains and groceries where the urban working class need not required to spend time in segregating in selecting the groceries, also in preparation which saves lot of their effort, time. Since food and grocery sales by organized sector firms account for only around 10 percent of total organized sector retail sales, clearly indicating that there is ample scope for scaling up of organized food and grocery retailing. The high growth rate of the top players in Indias organized food and grocery segment suggests that this sector will occupy a growing share of both the food and grocery market and the overall retail market in India. As such government opening up of FDI in retail is fully justifiable for creation of more facilities for the consumers, more storage facilities for the farm produce reducing the wastage, however government needs to induce and incorporate stringent protective laws as far as FDI retail is concerned, in the event that India is law abiding country which once made a policy will not revert it in future, as such there should be initial safe guards should be incorporated in the system to protect the interest of the farmers from the possible exploitation by the giant retailers and the exploitation of labour by the giant retailers , the interest of the small traders from being forced closure due to competition in pricing, the interest of the Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSME) which are in food processing (which account over 3 million in number of units with a turnover of over 250 billion rupees) and ultimately the interest of the majority of the consumers who are common man i.e amm admi and also for the government most important is the taxes on the revenues earned by these multi brand giant retailers to be collected in India only.

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MEASURES TO FIX EXISTING PERILS AMONG VARIOUS SECTIONS OF PEOPLE REGARDING FOREIGN DIRECT INVESTMENT IN RETAIL SECTOR IN A WIN-WIN STRATEGY FOR THE PEOPLE AS WELL AS THE INVESTOR The statistics shows that the retail trade in organized sector is only 10 % of the total retail sale of around Rs 24 lack cores per annum in India; where as in food and groceries as of now around 95 % retail is un organised and only 5 % is in organised sector which is growing at 70 % per annum in turnover as far as top 10 individual multi brand retail is concerned in five years clearly indicates that the stores are patronized by the urban people especially the working class; the projection of organised multi brand retail sale is expected at around 15 % in a decade which clearly indicates that in a decade over 10% of the small traders are going to closure; but there may be an employment loss is several time the employment generation due to the organized retail sale which was mostly mechanised ( use silo bins for storage, cold storages, as such employment generation through back end infrastructure which may generate over 2% or little more as the workers of the construction company may have work during the construction only) the employment generated at present by the unorganised retail is around 4.5 crores, in the event as per government projections that organised retail may take maximum 15 % of the total retail in 10 years which means there is a loss of employment to 45 lack people in ten years mostly i.e yearly near about 4.5 lack jobs who are semi skilled people maintaining the accounts, small labour job as helpers (not hamalies / like daily wage labour engaged in the MNREGA works these employees of retail cannot do hard labour?); apart from the loss of direct employment where these employees who are tuned to the labour of the kirana retail cannot be suitable for other labour jobs; the answer is government has to adjust these workers/ employees of un organised retail through the construction of godowans/ silo bins for storage of the farm produce in the villages/mandals is the only solution, for which again huge invest is required as such government must make FDIs in the Agriculture sector for back end infrastructure creation as per the government plan for establishing the rural warehousing in a more sophisticated manner (as mentioned in my document Food for All); Also since the purchase power, storage capacity and holding for long power is vested with the multi brand retail they may do a turnover of 1:50 i.e for every Rs 1 investment may do a turnover of Rs 50 per annum which may be much bigger than the
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estimates in 10 years by few players; many people has the biggest peril that the farmers and the traders got effected badly, equally the consumers over a period of time as such these issues need to be addressed; As discussed in my previous document titled Suggestions for Achieving Food For All... regarding the ideal & advantageous for all that government itself should be procuring the entire agriculture produce in the larger interest of farmers and people by completely banning the contract banning and the middle men in the system (as was intended/expecting by government the retail giant stores eliminate middlemen exploitation - as such the same advantage should be made to the all the farmers from the exploitation by the middlemen as well as the retail giant stores; also if as per the government the organised retail mainly benefits in collection of sales tax, but in the event if government procure the entire produce and put it to the market there is no chance of single rupee tax escape as government can collect the tax at the source while selling to the traders before it reaches the retailers in the market itself which means all the retail is organised as far as the tax angle is concerned; apart from this fixing minimum and maximum sale of the products will ensure that almost the entire retail is organised as far as food grains and groceries is concerned except the difference of cleaning, sewing etc which is done by the multi brand retail stores, of course now a days most of the small traders i.e kirana stores also doing the cleaning and sieving before selling; still urban population is patronizing the modern multi brand retail system the same should be continued only in addition to government following the procurement & marketing of the entire agriculture produce along with minimum maximum sale creteria), since the retail stores can occupy a maximum of 10% to 15 % of the total volume of the retail sector over a decade which many not take care of the need of not more than 25% of the farmers and their produce including their buffer stock in their individual storage godowans so the rest of 75 % farmers will certainly get exploited by middlemen as well as the price war from the retail giant stores during the tough times by release of buffer stock in the possession of the retail giant stores bring the stock at old prices do killing in the market) at minimum procurement price (which should be fixed based on the local conditions and local inputs costs in that village/mandal) from the farmers with providing a minimum of 20 % profit for the farmers and fixing the price for the traders and the retailers, in order to ensure fair trade practices the government must fix the minimum sale price for all the commodities in addition to fixing of maximum
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sale price. As otherwise since the fixing of the maximum sale price is based on the minimum support price paid to the farmer which is dependent up on the local conditions, the prices of the commodities may vary from place to place. In this connection the traders may procure in bulk from the other places or may sell adulterated food grains. To prevent all these and make fair competition among the traders and retailers at all the places the minimum sale price should be fixed in addition to the maximum price. To ensure all traders will sell at minimum sale price and not exceeding the maximum sale price all the traders and the all retailers should mandatorily maintain the electronic billing system for the sale of non processed raw agriculture products from kirana stores to hyper markets. This system will ensure fair trade practices even in supermarkets and other hypermarkets. Also this will certainly eliminate the fears of many people as far as the retail food cost is concerned (as many fear that multi brand retail giants will procure the materials from the low cost production countries like Thailand, Indonesia, Cambodia, Vietnam etc and import food products in bulk and sell it at cheaper price than the agriculture raw output of India, killing many small retailers and many agriculture producers) in the light of FDI in retail allowing the multi brand giant retail chains in India. As such in order to prevent any such occurrences in future, it will be more ideal that government should make it mandatory that all the multi brand retail stores should procure at least 3/4 of the total agriculture produce sold (both raw agriculture produce as well as processed foods) in the stores (in terms of quantity as well as in terms of value of the products sale) should be procured from the Indian agriculture produce as long as they operate the store in Indian Territory, in addition the multi brand giant retail stores should sell 100 % sale of the agriculture raw produce (like rice, wheat, cereals, vegetables and fruits) at the minimum sale price fixed by the the government for the respective commodities as per the area, as government fixes different rates for different areas of sale based on the local conditions (the cost of agriculture inputs, the climatic conditions). Also all these giant multi brand retail stores should mandatorily sale within the maximum price fixed by the government for the raw agriculture produce (even though they do the cleaning, sieving packing etc of the raw agriculture produce, which may lose certain quantity as waste). This will certainly protect the sale of the agriculture produce as majority of the consumers are in the urban and semi urban areas as many middle class and upper class people
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live in these areas with more purchase power as they certainly possess more per capta income compared to the rural areas. Since the prices of the commodities for sale are fixed for minim sale price this will certainly force all the multi brand retailer giants procure the raw agriculture procure locally, otherwise there may be a danger of the damage to small retailers as they cannot compete with them due to less holding capacity and the prices are naturally slightly higher than the multi brand retail, of course these price competition can be minimized only through minimum sale price protection (even though it is a fact that majority of the small kirana stores are surviving and can survive to some extent mainly due to the credit facility provided by them to the purchasers, as majority of them are established for years in the same locality and majority of the purchasers are purchasing from the same kirana stores for several years, but still every individual purchaser look to save the money when it comes much cheaper at some other place like in the multi brand retail giant stores, as such it is very necessary to fix the minimum sale price of all the raw agriculture produce to protect the interest of many sections). Also this is necessary to protect the interest of the Indian farmers as well as the Indian small retailers.(the best & ideal example to understand the sensitivity of the issue is comparing with telecom sector which also involves crores of people as India has over 85 crore mobile connections; Even though it is very hard to digest but it is a fact that the some private telecom players literally made the BSNL got killed it self, which is once the profit making prestigious organisation of India in Telecom and government, but the FDI in the telecom literally got sick the Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd (BSNL), as the government PSU could not able to compete with them (even though excellent technological & engineering capabilities and supporting staff) in expanding the markets by pumping in the huge investments in the sector as was done by the private players who are competitive till they totally penetrated into the markets, this made once having a profit of over Rs 10,000 crores was now in a stage of closure of the organisation with over Rs 13,000 crores loss just in less than a decade, this may certainly repeat in the FDI retail if stringent safe guard laws are not framed (as if a profit making giant organisation reached the level of closure in less than a decade one can imagine the tiny retailers position after over a decade?), even though the FDI in retail is a positive move in bring the standards in many areas such as by constructing more storage facilities, more processing units over a
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period of time (presuming an investment of 4 billion in FDI retail in 10 years, with government present mandatory condition of 50 % of investment in back end infrastructure creation which means 2 billion which can create sizable infrastructure, but the infrastructure will be for specific use of the investor alone for their own fullest advantage, not certainly for the use of the general purpose storage use by the government. (This FDI in retail will certainly benefit in creation of jobs both directly and indirectly and little turnover for the construction companies and filling the ideal constructed spaces in the cities and large towns which are ideal due to slum in real estate due to meltdown of global financial markets, but it will be total advantage for the Multi brand Retail Giants as there is every possibility they will construct the cold storages and storage godowans in the areas near to where mass agriculture production takes place, they procure the material at very cheap rate the entire quantities in that area and store for long and and sell it far less than the actual produce price after some months which will kill the small farmers and traders due to acute loses due to no market for their genuine sale. example when the bumper crop arrives due to good monsoon the tomato farmers are selling tomato at mere 20 pisa i.e Rs 0.20 per Kg, these multi brand retailers will construct cold storages in areas little far away from these districts where bumper crop arrives and procure the material store it for months as they have large holding capacity both financially as well as storage space, they will sell the material far cheaper than the market price after some months which will be some advantage for the consumers but a great loss to the farmers, as after few months due to weathering conditions the tomato will be sold by the same farmers at Rs 20 per Kg due to the production cost to him may touches over Rs 18 on an average, then the multi brand retailers who got cold storages and who procured from the farmers at 20 pisa per kg during the bumper crop season add transport and storage cost together Rs 3 and may sell tomato at Rs 10 per kg, which means the other farmers will lose the money of Rs 15 per Kg, and many other traders/retailers will acute face loss, as when such a dead cheap it is available people will buy from the multi brand retail stores only coming from faraway places, while the multi brand retailers earn a profit of Rs 7 on kg of tomato for having the holding capacity and storage capacity, the case is same for other commodities also. This can be avoided if and only if there exists a minimum and maximum sale price fixed by the government, in addition government only should procure the entire produce and supply to the farmers- completely banning the contract
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farming and direct purchase of raw agriculture produce from the farmers or the intermediateries, but once the government makes the mandatory minimum procurement price and fixes the minimum retail sale price and maximum retail price by the government condition of 50 % of the investment in the back end i.e storage transport etc by the construction of cold storages by the multi brand retail giant stores will be great advantages to the farmers, by getting fair price for them in the event of bumper crop, at the same time great advantage for the consumers as most of the times the commodities are available at prices fixed by the government). Also the government procuring from the farmers the entire produce and marketing will have enormous advantages, as there will not be uniform output of agriculture at all places, in this situation government procurement will help in distributing to other places where there is shortfall of agriculture output to balance the pricing almost the same throughout the country, (like whenever there is short fall of electricity government procuring the current from other states and ensuring the availability of the power) Also even though FDI in retail may certainly create a sizable job opportunities both directly as well as indirectly through back end infrastructure, but there exists every danger of exploitation of labour by these multi brand retail as studies conducted by various international organisations at the developing nations where the FDI in retail was opened up clearly indicate that there was exploitation of the labour by the multi brand retail giants by paying less and extracting more from the workers, as such government must fix minimum salaries and maximum working hours per day/week for working in the multi brand retail stores, in addition government must ensure that that all labour laws will be applicable to all people working in the multi brand retail giant stores, allowing the formation of labour union in each FDI-Multi brand retail giant stores, also government must ensure that minimum of 90 % of the unskilled & semi skilled work force should be mandatorily Indian origin citizens of India, also at least 75 % of the skilled workforce should be Indian origin citizens of India.), Also all the employees should be employed only on permanent bases and certainly not on the contract bases; in addition the government must ensure that all the employees of the multi brand retail giant stores should provide health care for the employees and their families either through providing health insurance cared or by construction of super speciality hospitals in the nearby vicinity where maximum employees living area to provide
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health care for the individual employees as well as the family members of the employee. Also there is danger that multi brand foreign retails act by bringing raw food/ food products imported in bulk, especially the cheap processed food which do not have Indian FDA certification may have a negative impact on the youth as youth are mostly attracted to the foreign foods, with danger of every possibility to get addicted to those foods, as there exists a danger that these imported food products may be like the terminator seeds of agriculture promoted by the foreign companies i.e the GM/GE genetically modified seeds which will have the long term impact on the fertility of the soil once they are seeded and the crop is raised, there is no other alternative that only the GM/GE seeds should be able to be cultivated (forcibly) otherwise the once fertile land will remain as barren wasteland, as the GE/GM seeds infuse the killer characteristics into the soil soon after the yielding of the crop before dying, to destroy the fertility and make the soil tune only to the GM/GE seeds in future, likewise these imported food products will ruin the metabolic system of Indian people as over a period of time they completely need to depend on these imported foods only discarding our traditional Indian foods, as such government must make a policy to ensure that each and every food product either raw or processed which was imported or manufactured outside India should certainly get tested and get approval for each and every batch of the each product by the Indian FDA , in addition the government should mandatorily ensure the sale price of manufactured foods are also fit into the minimum and maximum sale price criteria by making that all manufacturing procedures of same nature for producing similar products will have the minimum and maximum sale price (whether manufactured in India or abroad if product and procedure of manufacture same) otherwise over a period of time India will become the dumping yard of foreign un-standard & un healthy foods resulting in not only killing the traditional foods but also there is every possibility of health hazards of different natures (the majority of the children and youth in the western countries who are being addicted to the junk foods like pizzas and burgers and others foods, are suffering from obesity and many other health complications as majority of the junk foods are manufactured from the agriculture produce of the GE/GM seeds and crops, almost the same is happing in urban India as even though there exits over 1/3 of the children are underweight in India due under nutrition, surprisingly there is an alarmingly high, over
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11% of the children are suffering with obesity due to over nutrition, majority of them are urban middle class and high income group mainly due to addicted to the junk foods, so there is every danger that the sub standard foreign foods create an addiction in the children and youth which may have long term impact in the absence of stringent Indian FDA laws to test, allow foreign processed foods,) Also government should has the advantage of more tax collection like import customs tax on the food materials and the sales tax through the FDI in retail, but government must adopt strict vigilance and appropriate other measures to curtail the since there exists every possibility of inflating the shipping bills and reducing the margins, Also government must ensure that the profits earned by the Multi brand retail stores should be fully taxed in India only; which is possible if and only if there exists a double taxation agreement with the countries where the FDI in retail is coming from, since the multi brand retail stores if invested Rs 1 they will do a turnover of Rs 100 per annum in the realistic terms government expecting an investment of 3 to 4 billion dollars in a decade by the time they will do a turnover of over 400 billion dollars, as such the taxation matter is very important as such government must ensure taking up all measures which makes mandatory condition the profit earned in Indian Soil by the multi brand retail stores should be taxed in India only, as there exists over 51 % of the share by the foreign companies.) Also government must formulate stringent laws in regards to the welfare of the employees, in regarding the FDA approvals for imported processed food, in regarding to taxation otherwise like the private telecom players provided much needed expansion of the services to common man which is appreciable, but at the same time the private operators are literally acting at their own whims & fancies even thought there exits Honble Supreme Court of India made the mandatory bar of the un-wanted promotional calls, none of the private telecom operators followed even there are repeated requests by the individual customers, in addition at the same time most of the private operators are literally squeezing the money of the many millions of innocent customers with forced& un known to the customers offerings of unwanted offers of like caller tunes, film news, astrology, chatting, dating, etc deducting the money from the individual pre paid account holders without their knowledge in small amounts ranging from 10 Rs to 50 Rs with at least they are
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squeezing not less than 50 Rs on average from the customers per month in addition to earning of regular profits (this additional income of all the private operators touches as high as over Rs 1 billion per month (near about Rs 5,500 crores per month which is around Rs 63,000 crores per annum), as near about 83 crors mobile connections exist in India, every individuals cannot go several times to the operators local offices or the consumer forums and the courts for this amount as they have to waste valuable time energy on this, of course they will win the case), the same kind of extortion in appropriate different manner may happen in the multi brand giant retail stores in case proper systems are not places at the initial stages with non application of stringent implementation of laws, Also even though the private telecom operators knew the consequences of radiation emission from the cell towers causing serious health hazards they did not bother to follow the rules as was followed in the western countries and installed high power cell towers everywhere to save money with a single motto to earn profit and recover very speedy the investment at the earliest (instead of keeping many smaller frequency towers as operation costs will increase in case of more number of towers which reduces the profits marginally) as of now most of the private telecom operators are acting more or less like the media (even though TRAI telecom regulatory authority of India has full control over them), presuming that they only have to frame the self regulations, this kind of situation may arise in the case of multi brand giant retail stores, as they are big and mighty and can influence any section of governance in India as always the same government may not exists, unlike China which ever government in power the same communist principles will be applicable with stringent implementation of laws and stringent punishments, also the case is same with other western countries where the law implementation is stringent and the culprits are brought to justice very quickly, but the case is not the same is India being a socialist democratic country, mostly run by collation governments till next few terms, laws implementation are not so stringent as compared to other countries of course the laws are very stringent in most of the areas, also there is certainly time taking activity as far as bring the culprits to justice, best example the Bhopal gas incidence) As FDI in retail is will hold to be a good move of the government, if and only if government fixing the minimum sale price and maximum sale price can ensure that fair trade practices occur in India at all
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times coupled with mandatory Indian FDA approval for each batch of each imported processed food sale in India as mandatory pre condition to sale in India to protect the interest of farmers, small retailers, people of Indian from having healthier,good foods all time. Also once announced FDI in retail going back will lead to downgrade of the image of India in the foreign countries as well as downgrade the confidence of the global investors in other FDI sectors, as such the FDI in retail should be continued with stringent protection laws incorporate with appropriate checks and balances fulfilling the larger dream of the UPA to really benefit the people of the nation through reduction in the prices through bringing fair competition without any scope for foul play, and also creation of more employment opportunities with all safe guards for the employees with the entire tax on the sale should be collected in India only for better revenue generation as compared to unorganised retailing in which maximum scope for zero billing trade. Also it is a fact that capitalists are ruthless people as majority of the capitalists follow the universal principal that they should earn more money at any cost, even at the cost of their own life, adopting the principle of live in money, eat money die in earning money only, they feel capital has no colour, no smell, no morals, no values, no sentiments and no religion. As such Congress party who always vouches and advocates for the welfare, betterment of common people, down trodden, always following the path of the Father of the Nation Mahatma Gandhi Ji should need to advocate & vouch for welfareisim and social justice, social equality for all, has to take up this issue at this initial stage for the larger benefit of the people of the country as well as party for framing, incorporating stringent laws in the FDI retail system. Otherwise there every danger of rise in the unrest of the people (which is like a massive wild fire in the light of these social movements just based on the government reports on corruption, but if it really touches their lives by cutting the food in their plate directly due to government policy over a period of time the unrest will certainly un stoppable), which may be also be capitalised by the naxalisim, and the country may turn into another countries of middle east, but unlike middle east countries controlling the unrest in India is really a tough task, almost is next to impossible, due the size of population in our country. As such it is more ideal and appropriate for the for the UPA government under congress leadership should take appropriate necessary steps to safe guard the interests of various sections of people while allowing the FDI in Retail.
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NEED FOR PRIVATE INVESTMENT; INCLUDING FDI IN AGRICULTURE SECTOR FOR PROVIDING

CHEAPER INPUTS LIKE WATER, FERTILIZERS AND LARGER STORAGE FACILITIES GODOWNS FOR FERTILIZERS, SILO BINS FOR STORAGE OF FOOD GRAINS, COLD STORAGES FOR STORAGE OF VEGETABLES AND FRUITS- APART FROM FDI IN RETAIL WHICH HAS LIMITED TO THEIR INDIVIDUAL ORGANISATIONAL USE & BENEFIT As we all knew that there exists a huge gap in the agriculture output and the storage capacity, processing capacity and also the inputs supply is not on par with the demand, as a result there is huge loss to the agriculture output it is as high as over 30 % of the agriculture produce is getting wasted and getting rotten without having the scope for use due to lack of storage facility and being exposed to atmosphere with draining in rains and cold winters making them to get rotten due to bacterial and fungal formation and many fruits and vegetables are rotten during the excessive crop yield due to lack of cold storages to enhance the shelf life and also lack of food processing industries in the vicinity of the massive cropping areas, all these leading to short supply in the food grains and vegetables leading to high costs for the consumers; all these indicates huge investments required to create the infrastructure for the agriculture sector like the storage godwans for fertilizers, storage godowans for food grains, silo storage bins (modern storage godowans), cold storages, rail sidings for the godowans, market yards, etc. Since the government allowed the FDI in retail with mandatory condition that 50 % of the investment should be on the back end infrastructure creation by the multi brand giant retail stores, which will serve their individual company purpose only. Otherwise the governments claim of the FDI in retail will serve the saving of 30 % of the wastage of food products will be a disastrous to the entire small and marginal farmers as well as small traders with such a huge holding capacity by the private giants will do killing of the small traders and farmers as per the government claim that the multi brand retail giant stores occupy only a maximum of 6 to 15 % of the total trade in 10 years from now (as of now 6 % of the retail trade is organised and rest 94 % is semi organised and un organised sector), if 6 % of the retail traders holds near about 30 % of the total produce (the wastage which is happening as of now due to lack of godowns), then they will undoubtedly do killing of small farmers and small trades by playing ruthless cost gambling in the procurement procuring the agriculture
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produce at cut-throat prices as well as in retail sale by selling their produce are no where mach to even the procurement cost of the whole sale traders leaving alone the retailer traders and the margins and the cost of transport of the wholesaler as well as retailer as and when appears to be profitable to them - happen or not- can be left to individuals wisdom? As such it is not true that the entire investment of the multi brand retailers is not sufficient to cater the needs of the storage except storage for their personal company needs, which may account for only less than 10 % of the total agriculture produce (still can play a vital role in price game as such government must safe guard the interest of the small and marginal farmers as well as the small traders by fixing the minimum support price for procurement by government, banning direct sale by farmers and banning contract farming for retailing, and also fixing the minimum and maximum sale price for the agriculture raw produce sale), the idea of having more modern storage facilities is to reduce the food prices by making more availability in the market by reducing the wastage due to lack of storage of the agriculture produce, as of now the annual agriculture produce in India is over 350 million metric tonnes but surprisingly India has only about 110 million metric tonnes of storage godowns with private godowns account for only 15 million metric tonnes. As such the government must urgently open up the FDI in agriculture sector for the creation of the back end infrastructure is concerned only. Also the government must allow only 49 % FDI in agriculture sector for providing the agriculture inputs like the, water for cultivation through irrigation projects, through cloud seeding, through solar power operated bore wells and power generation in agriculture fields through wind energy etc, fertilizers (both chemical and bio), bio pesticides etc require huge investments to produce and supply to the farmers. To make everything by the government investment as per the existing demand is next to impossible to achieve in the at least next few decades; the only alternative is to bring huge private investment, but it is not possible to bring such a huge investments by Indian private investors, as such government must open up these areas in the agriculture sector to foreign direct investment (FDI) up to 49 % only to ensure that Indian partner has more say; since there will not be any risk to the foreign investors in the agriculture sector once the government makes it a policy that all agriculture inputs and outputs are routed through government and government supplies the inputs by payment guarantees from the government and the output is procured by the government from the farmers, as
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such the government mandatorily store in the storage facility, this will ensure that the payments for the storage is paid by the governments. Also as far as the cloud seeding for water supply is concerned payments should be as per the total rain water collected, also the FDI in weather modification (cloud seeding) is more possible the ground was already prepared by government indirectly; since the governments has made a great move of allowing 49 % FDI in the aviation sector which will boost the investors towards cloud seeding if government opens the FDI in this sector, since the cloud seeding is mainly dependent on airplanes spilling the chemicals in the clouds to covert the moisture in the cloud to become water droplets and fall as rain water. Also similarly the ground water lifting through solar powered motors with payment on the bases of quantity of water dispensed will certainly the FDI as government is paying for the water. Also as far as the storage godowans for food grains is concerned the Silo bins which are the most most modern, efficient and effective way of storing food grains minimizing the wastages due to pests, insects, and wastage in the handling and saving lot of fumigants and the gunni bags and can be stored for longer period; the payments are guaranteed for the investors as stock of the total agriculture produce is procured by the government from the Village Agriculture Co-operative Associations from all the farmers, making it the government responsibility for storage of the agriculture produce; the case is same with regards to the cold storages for storing the fruits and vegetables. All these measures lead to more supply of food grains, fruits & vegetables in the market which can make the prices stable at all times. As such the FDI in agriculture sector will certainly boost the economy and economic growth are will certainly be in double digits; which means more jobs, better lively hood for the people in India.

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JAI HIND
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