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Lawyers oppose FDI in retail, SEZs
EXPRESSING CONCERN over the government?s foreign direct investment (FDI) policy, a group of prominent lawyers has cautioned that in its haste to set up SEZs and allow giants like Wal-Mart into the country, the government had overlooked the need of having rules and regulations in place to ensure the welfare of small traders and farmers.
EXPRESSING CONCERN over the government’s foreign direct investment (FDI) policy, a group of prominent lawyers has cautioned that in its haste to set up SEZs and allow giants like Wal-Mart into the country, the government had overlooked the need of having rules and regulations in place to ensure the welfare of small traders and farmers.
Supreme Court lawyer and spokesperson of the group, Sonia Raj Sood, told reporters in the City on Tuesday, “We want the government to ascertain how much of investment Wal-Mart and other multinationals will get in the country, whether they will buy goods from India, how much of the investment will be used for agricultural products and how many jobs will be provided.”
She asserted that FDI in retail would affect 98 per cent of the retail trade in India and wipe out 15 million retailers worsening the already acute unemployment problem in the country. “It is incomprehensible how an economist like Prime Minister Manmohan Singh reversed his stance of 15 years in a single meeting with the Wal-Mart chief and allowed 51 per cent equity in the retail sector,” she lamented.
Sonia said that FDI in retail would affect the Indian manufacturers who would not be able to compete with their foreign counterparts from whom Wal-Mart would source the goods.
“Besides, suppliers to Wal-Mart have been worst hit due to the company’s policies in other countries,” she said, adding that it was alarming that opposition to Wal-Mart had been maximum in the USA where thousands of traders had to close their shops. About her stance on Reliance Retail, the mega retail venture of Mukesh Ambani, Sonia said she was opposed to monopoly of any kind.
Terming SEZ Act as unconstitutional advocate Ajay Bagadiya of MP High Court said that SEZ was a major step towards economic slavery of Indians to foreigners. “Labour laws are not applicable on SEZ areas and only 35 per cent economic activity is allowed in these deemed foreign territories whereas 65 per cent is for building activity.”
The SEZ Act, he said, was basically framed to facilitate the entry of FDI in the country and no objections were invited at the time of framing this Act, as was the norm.
Sonia said that she was spearheading a nationwide movement of lawyers so that petitions challenging the SEZ Act and FDI in retail are filed in various courts. “The latter will squeeze the domestic farmer and SEZ will ensure the capture of their lands.” India, she said, was an agrarian economy and the Indian farmer cannot afford to have his land confiscated for a song.
