The CAIT on Monday, December 27, said that it welcomed the initiative by the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT) to roll out a National Retail Trade Policy allowing only 20 percent of retail trade via e-commerce, stating that "it will boost the retail trade of India to a new level."

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"It meets with the long pending demand of the Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT) and hence we appreciate this move," said CAIT National President B.C. Bhartia and Secretary General Praveen Khandelwal, in a joint statement.

They firmly asserted that the policy must contain a specific provision that only up to 20 percent of retail trade should be permitted to be conducted online. They further demanded that the stakeholders must be taken into confidence before implementing the same.

Also read: DPIIT seeks views of different ministries on draft national retail trade policy

Retail trade in India is the only sector that lacks a separate ministry or a policy, according to Bhartia and Khandelwal, who estimate that the market is worth Rs 130 lakh crore yearly and is growing at a pace of 10 percent annually.

The National Retail Trade Policy will therefore prove to be beneficial for the country's economy and trade and commerce, they said. It should be emphasised that conventional retailers, or non-corporate retail, account for approximately 80 percent of retail trade, whereas corporation retail accounts for about 10 percent, e-commerce for about 7 percent, and direct selling 3 percent.

However, Bhartia and Khandelwal said without an e-commerce policy and codified rules and regulations for e-commerce trade, the National Retail Trade Policy will prove to be a half-baked exercise that will be only partially beneficial.

The retail trade has four verticals — corporate retail, non-corporate retail, e-commerce and direct selling. Therefore, the National Retail Trade Policy should have a streamlined and thorough policy that enables all four verticals to operate together without interfering with one another, they said.

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(Edited by : Shoma Bhattacharjee)

First Published:Dec 26, 2022 5:53 PM IST