The lobbying disclosure report of world's largest middleman, Walmart stating spending of whopping Rs.125 crore in India for lobbying to facilitate its entry into retail trade of India, as appeared today in media, has prompted the Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT) to demand the Union Government to make an immediate announcement of investigation of the matter and who are the real beneficiaries of such amount should also be included in the ambit of investigation.
CAIT Secretary General Praveen Khandelwal while showing the Walmart lobbying disclosure report of Year 2011 to the correspondents said that this report also contains lobbying expenses made by Walmart in India with regard to FDI.
Khandelwal said that Union Commerce Minister Anand Sharma laid FDI policy papers on 25th November,2011 on the floor of the Parliament and subsequent notification issued on 20th September,2012 contains major deviations.Since the papers were laid in the Parliament, the Government was under obligation to discuss the issue in Parliament but unilatrely the notification was issued on 20th September,2012.
It is worth noting that in the year 2012,which is intervening period between papers laid in the house and notification issued, the Walmart spend Rs. 18 crore.
Khandelwal said that the notification has been issued in great haste, which has created a big question mark on the creditability of policy makers. The gross ignorance of democratic process including ignoring the unanimous report of the Parliamentary Standing Committee, ignoring majority of opposing views received by Commerce Ministry in response to its discussion paper,and no consultation with stakeholders leads to many doubts.
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