Metro Cash & Carry finally gets licence in West Bengal

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Kolkata, Oct 10: After losing the Tata Motors’ Nano project, West Bengal chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee can breathe a bit easy as German wholesale major Metro Cash & Carry on Friday was finally awarded a fresh trade licence with strings attached by the West Bengal Agri Marketing Board. This will pave the way for the German company to open its first store in Kolkata soon.

This followed days of face-off between the marketing board controlled by the Forward Bloc, a constituent of the Left Front, and Metro Cash & Carry, which at one time had threatened to quit the city.

On Friday, a MoU was signed between the state government and the German major. Naren Chatterjee, a Forward Bloc leader, heads the state agriculture marketing board. The party was opposing the entry of Metro on the ground that this would harm interests of small retailers.

Metro was first provided the license in 2005. It was renewed twice, and was valid till March 31, 2008. But in June 2007, the agriculture board unilaterally revoked it. The problem started when Metro had gone to the board for the renewal the license after it decided to start wholesale trading.

According to the MoU, the German major will have to sell commodities only to traders having a wholesale trade licence, and in case of agri products, an APMC license.

Metro can never go for direct or indirect retail business and cannot opt for contract farming either. Moreover, all legal disputes will have to be settled in a court of law in the state. Metro has to give a licence fee of 1% to the agricultural marketing board during buying and selling of goods from the market.

This is being seen as a triumph for Bhattacharjee as the APMC had to backtrack from its earlier stand that the German company could not sell a single item worth less than Rs 5,000. The company will continue with its earlier minimum billing limit worth Rs 1,000.

However, the agriculture board has imposed a market fee of 1% on both sale and purchase of every commodity.

“For the first time in the country, a corporate house agreed to work under conditions imposed by the state government,” said Naren Chatterjee, chairman of the West Bengal Agri Marketing Board.