In what seems to be a good news for the e-commerce players in India, the government is planning to relax riders in food retail with respect to sharing of infrastructure between food retail as well as e-commerce.  

In an exclusive interview to ET NOW, Union Minister of Food Processing, Harsimrat Badal, shared many insights on US retail giant Walmart, which is planning to storm the Indian retail and e-commerce market, with the decision to buy majority stakes in Flipkart. She also spoke about several bottlenecks that foreign players face in India with regards to food retail. 

With regards to food retail, she said that Walmart did not want just food but also homecare products as the former leads to “very high overheads” due to the entire chain of infrastructure like cold storage facilities chains that are required. She went on to suggest that the retail cost, in a scenario where only food retail is allowed, would push up prices and would affect “viability”.  

“The viability comes in when they make that extra money from other non-food items.” When asked whether the government plans to reduce bottlenecks for foreign players, she said the government is working hard increase ease of doing business in India and that the commerce ministry is examining the issues in detail. There are chances that norms will become even easier for major e-comm and retail players in India.