Deadlock threatens Indian retail reform

NEW DELHI, Nov 29 (AFP): India's government faced pressure Tuesday to backtrack on reforms opening the retail sector to foreign chains such as Wal-Mart, after an all-party meeting on the issue failed to reach a consensus. Both houses of parliament were forced to adjourn for the day as lawmakers protested against the liberalisation changes announced last week that could see the arrival of large, multi-brand international supermarkets in India. Anger over the reforms has united small shopkeepers, trade unions, influential state leaders and lawmakers both from opposition parties and from within Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's ruling coalition. The all-party meeting Tuesday, chaired by Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee to tackle the deadlock, broke up without a deal being reached, and parliament was paralysed by noisy protests against the reforms. "We have demanded a rollback of the decision," said Sudip Bandopadhyay, a leader of the Trinamool Congress party, one of the largest groups within Singh's government. "Such matters should be discussed with (government) partners," he added, highlighting criticism that the reforms were approved by the cabinet on Thursday evening without a parliamentary vote. The government did not make a statement after the all-party meeting but Bandopadhyay said Mukherjee had pledged to take up complaints with the prime minister. Mohan Singh, spokesman for the opposition Samajwadi Party, vowed that protests by lawmakers against allowing foreign direct investment (FDI) in the retail sector would continue until the government backed down. "Without government withdrawing the FDI decision, parliament cannot function smoothly," he told reporters after the hour-long talks. Commerce Minister Anand Sharma has said modernisation of food processing and packaging would create millions of new jobs, and also end the problem of up to 50 per cent of perishable goods produced by farmers never reaching markets.