Reliance Retail is thinking of bringing its speciality retail format to West Bengal, after political opposition from some partners in the Left Front government forced it to roll back the opening of its Reliance Fresh branded farm-to-table chain.
Bijou Kurien, president and chief executive of Reliance Retail’s lifestyle division, said it is up to the government to make up its mind.
Speaking on the lines of other corporates like ITC and Infosys, who also want the government to make up its mind and take fast decisions, Kurien said Reliance plans to open 400 Fresh stores across India very soon.
“None in West Bengal,” he said, when asked if any of these would come up here.
Earlier this year, the Mukesh Ambani outfit, which has a Rs 25,000-crore national retail plan, had begun readying some stores for a formal opening. But political resistance from the Forward Bloc, a Left Front partner, forced it to shut down the stores before they had opened.
In an oblique reference to the response of the Reliance Fresh stores here, Kurien said: “If the government makes up its mind you can see everything.”
Asked about the retail formats that the state can expect from Reliance in the future, Kurien said: “Even if the government does not make up its mind about the Fresh stores, certainly you will see the other formats we intend to be putting in.”
According to him, West Bengal will have speciality formats in areas like jewellery, apparel and footwear. “I think you would not probably see anything before March 2008 but after that,” Kurien said.
Kurien, here for the national conference of the 11th National HRD Network, said Reliance plans to open 30 hypermarts this fiscal and none of them would be located in West Bengal.
As for the people that Reliance Retail had recruited in Kolkata and Uttar Pradesh (another state where the company had run into a wall), he said most of them had opted to relocate to other Reliance centres — being relocated to other centers he said that most of them have opted for the relocation.
“Some were very keen to stay on in Kolkata? we said okay fine you stay on and let us wait for other retail initiatives to come in,” he said.
