The Government of India on Friday said its decision to open multi-brand retail to foreign investment has large support and it is consulting the stakeholders to work out the implementation guidelines.
The government was forced to put on hold the Cabinet decision of November 24 to open FDI in multi-brand retail under intense pressure from the opposition parties and its own ally - Trinamool Congress.
However, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had stated that the government has not abandoned the decision to allow 51 per cent FDI in multi-brand retail.
The Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP) has been consulting small groups of stakeholders including consumer organisations, small industries and farmers.
"From the feedback which we have got so far... as far the basic decision of the policy is concerned, everyone has been supportive of the decision," DIPP Secretary P. K. Chaudhery told reporters here after meeting farmer associations.
He said that every section wants its interest to be protected to reap the maximum benefit out of the policy.
"So, it (consultation process) is more in the nature of the implementation guidelines that people were talking," he added.
The secretary said that farmer associations are "by and large" supportive of the government's decision.
"They welcomed FDI into retail sector. The point which they were making were that in terms of implementation of this policy, that there should be some safeguards," he said.
The associations said state governments should amend the APMC act "to get the full benefit of FDI in the retail sector".
The associations which were present in the meeting include Jagriti Agro Tech, Alliance for Sustainable and Holistic Agriculture Organic Farming Association of India, Bharat Krishak Samaj and Kisan Jagriti Manch.
The decision to allow FDI in multi-brand retail had imposed some conditions on the foreign retailers. These included a minimum investment of $100 million, of which half should be in the back-end infrastructure like cold chains, processing and packaging.
The retailers would also have to source at least 30 per cent of manufactured and processed products from small-scale units.