Traders protest ‘govt collusion with Amazon, Flipkart’

Calling upon Union MSME Minister Nitin Gadkari to reject any such proposed move, traders body Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT) said it will not accept any kind of government “collusion” with Amazon and Flipkart.

“If the Ministry is so serious, let it create an independent e commerce portal and the traders of the country will support such initiative and will do every bit of it to onboard seven crore traders of the country on such e commerce portal,” CAIT said in a statement.

The MSME Ministry earlier deferred its decision to create a government-owned e-commerce portal for MSME entities.

In a letter to Gadkari on December 9, CAIT drew attention to reports of the ministry initiating a move to join hands with e-commerce companies including Amazon and Flipkart.

The traders were also protesting against the alleged violation of the foreign direct investment (FDI) policy by Amazon and Flipkart and said that “it is nothing but a deep rooted conspiracy of Amazon and Flipkart to enter into crony capitalism under the garb of bringing foreign investment which is being used for cash burning in maintaining predatory pricing and deep discounting, controlling inventory, having preferential seller system and exclusivity of products.” Apart from New Delhi, business leaders from states such as Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh and West Bengal participated in the demonstration, CAIT said.

The traders of All India Mobile Retailers Association and All India Consumer Products Distributors’ Federation also attended the demonstration in large numbers, it added.

CAIT President BC Bhartia and Secretary General Praveen Khandelwal alleged Flipkart and Amazon are leading losses of thousands of crores of rupees in the GST revenue by artificially lowering the prices and by showing huge losses in their business. CAIT has already urged Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman to conduct an investigation into these charges of tax avoidance.