Wal-Mart’s cash-n-carry outlet may open shop in Gujarat in January

If all goes well, Vallabh Vidyanagar will soon be the address to Bharti Wal-Mart’s first cash and carry store in Gujarat. To be launched under the name of Anand Miracle, the huge cash and carry store, dedicatedly for retailers, will open its doors on January 16, 2012, after Uttarayan.

According to the sources close to the development, the store was ready a long time back and was set to roll early this month. “But due to bribery allegations on Wal-Mart, the launch has been postponed,” sources said.

However, company officials call the entire information about its launch as baseless. “This information is baseless and incorrect,” said the Bharti Wal-Mart spokesperson.

Even though the BJP continued to protest the move, the UPA government successfully won the approval of the Parliament in allowing FDI in retail. In Gujarat too, Narendra Modi government always opposed the idea of FDI in retail. However, in spite of this, the US retail giant Wal-Mart is all set to spread its wings in Gujarat very soon.

Incidentally Reliance had already opened its cash and carry format in Ahmedabad in September 2011. Now, Bharti Wal-Mart is ready to launch the similar format in Vidyanagar in Anand next month. On one side, several malls in Ahmedabad, which were in business to consumer (B2C) segment, closed down. While on other, big retail giants are coming up with cash and carry format, which is purely a business to business (B2B) format. This store is not meant for customers and will cater only to grocery (kirana) shops which have value added tax (VAT) registrations for bulk orders.