Punjab is on the threshold of a major retail boom as leading corporate houses like Reliance, Spencer, Birla, Subhiksha, Piramals, Tatas, Rahejas, ITC, Godrej, S Kumar, RPG Enterprises, The Future Group (formerly PRIL) and fast-food retailer McDonald have announced major plans to liven up the retail sector in Punjab.
By 2008, Punjab would have a retail-space of 152-lakh sq ft coming from 33 operational malls. Further seven more projects have been announced that will take the number of malls in Punjab to over 40 by the year 2010, thus clearly highlighting the tremendous opportunities that Punjab offers in retail sector.
Punjab Government?s statistical department sources say that private consumption expenditure in the state today stands at about Rs 66,000 crore, which is 3.3% of the country?s total private consumption expenditure of Rs 20, 61,000 crore. Punjab has been consuming more than most other states, and is significantly higher than the national average in almost every retailing category.
A senior functionary of RIL (Mukesh Ambani Group), Punjab operations, told FE, ?Reliance Fresh has 14 stores in retail which were operational by now including seven in Jalandhar, three in Amritsar and four in Ludhiana.
The company would soon have two stores in Chandigarh by September, the company would have 30 stores in Punjab and 75 by year end.? The total retail space with Reliance at present is 48,000 sq feet for 14 stores which would go upto 2,50,000 lakh sq feet by the end of the current fiscal.
Those in retail sector say that a tremendous amount of potential exists in the fashion and lifestyle sector. Watches and jewellery are two other categories that have largely remained untapped in Punjab. Then there is no urban-rural divide in Punjab as the average monthly consumption expenditure for rural consumers in Punjab is Rs 1,022.05?just slightly lower than the state?s urban average, but much higher than the national average of Rs 635.72 per person per month. Thus, it is the second-tier cities and semi-urban and rural towns of Punjab that represent a goldmine of opportunity for the retailers. The mood is thus, extremely upbeat as far as the retail options in Punjab are concerned.