After Reliance Fresh being bulldozed out of northern India?s most populous state Uttar Pradesh and facing trouble in states like Orissa and West Bengal, the Aditya Birla Retail, whose retail plans are second just to Reliance?s grandiose plans, is cautiously treading the troubled waters for its northern India foray, where it plans to launch two supermarket stores ?More? on October 7.
According to sources, the stores will be opened in the Krishna Nagar and Shreshtha Nagar locality of east Delhi.
The company is proceeding very cautiously fearing that any hype around the launch may invite the ire of the anti-organised retail brigade, which has been targeting Reliance Fresh stores.
A company spokesperson could not be contacted despite several attempts. Though east Delhi is supposed to be a retailer’s paradise, since it is the hot bed of retail consumption with a high annual household consumption expenditure of Rs 9,511 crore.
But only two weeks back Reliance Fresh stores in the east Delhi localities of Shakarpur and Pandav Nagar saw protests and demonstrations by local traders.
However, the Aditya Birla Group has explicitly stated that unlike Reliance Retail, it will not directly source from the farmers, but only from the mandis.
Aditya Birla Retail has announced investment of Rs 8,000 crore in retail via supermarkets and hypermarkets and presently has 16 ?More? stores in Pune and 7 stores in Mumbai.
