CAIT Ups The Ante With Call For Nationwide Agitation Against Flipkart, Amazon

After taking ecommerce companies to mediatory meetings, courtrooms, and the government, the Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT) has now called for a nationwide agitation against Flipkart, Amazon and other ecommerce companies to continue its months-long protests.

The CAIT has alleged that both Flipkart and Amazon are flouting the government’s foreign direct investment (FDI) policy rules and destroying the country’s retail business through predatory pricing and deep discounting. Describing the new agitation as a “frontal war” the CAIT said that “merchants of the country will not let other East India Company emerge in the country.”

CAIT further said that it appears that ecommerce companies do not care about the warning given by the commerce minister from time to time and are disrespecting Indian law and policies and hence were continuing their business model on their portal which clearly violates the FDI policy. 

Earlier, CAIT wrote a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi asking for his intervention in the distortions and violation of FDI policy by ecommerce companies. It has also requested an appointment from the PM to further discuss these issues. However, until now it has failed to gain any official response from Modi.

CAIT’s November Of Protests Against Ecommerce

CAIT’s national president BC Bhartia and secretary-general Praveen Khandelwal said the traders’ body is all set to launch a national movement to continue the protests against ecommerce companies such as Flipkart and Amazon.

Here’s what the CAIT has planned in the months ahead:

• It has also called for a meeting of its national governing council in New Delhi, on  November 10, which will be participated by trade leaders of all states
• On November 13, CAIT delegations will submit a memorandum to all MPs of Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha across the country 
• On November 20, sit-in protests will be organised in about 200 cities in all the states of the country 
• On November 25, traders march will be organised in 500 districts and a memorandum will be handed over to district collectors
• On November 28, protest marches will be organised in over 1000 cities against the unethical business practices of these companies
• On December 2, a traders rally will be held in state capitals where thousands of traders are expected to participate. A CAIT delegation will submit a memorandum to the chief ministers of all states 
• A rally of business leaders and traders will be held in Delhi around December 10 
• In January 2020, the CAIT plans to conduct a three-day National Traders Convention in Delhi with more than 10K attendees

CAIT says that besides traders, other retail trade stakeholders in transport, small industries, farmers, vendors, consumers and entrepreneurs will be asked to join the movement. Moreover, the leaders of national organisations of these retail industry stakeholders have also been invited for the CAIT council meeting on November 10.

Update | 22:23, November 5, 2019

The original version of this article was titled ‘CAIT Loses Its Calm In Call For Nationwide Agitation Against Flipkart, Amazon’.

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