NEW DELHI (AFP) — India's Reliance Industries has sacked 150 grocery workers in communist-ruled West Bengal state, an official said Monday, leaving its bid to revolutionise how Indians shop mired in difficulty.
Plans by Reliance, India's top energy company, to invest at six billion dollars to create a Western-style supermarket revolution have hit major opposition from small traders fearful of losing their livelihoods and politicians worried about losing votes.
"There were around 150 contract staff who were let go," the official said, calling media reports that 400 were dismissed in the eastern state too high.
Reliance Retail, a unit of Reliance Industries Ltd led by billionaire Mukesh Ambani, had earlier suspended plans to open stores in West Bengal after the communist governmment expressed "strong opposition".
Reliance Retail was planning to launch around 145 grocery stores and other retail operations in West Bengal.
The latest firings came a week after Reliance dismissed 1,000 of its 2,000 employees and froze operations in India's most populous state Uttar Pradesh after violent protests by small traders there.
The protests led the Uttar Pradesh government to order Reliance stores to close, citing law and order worries.
"We have decided to go slow in both West Bengal and Uttar Pradesh," said the Reliance official.
Uttar Pradesh is key to the success of the company's retail rollout with its population of 166 million people.
Reliance's setbacks underline the obstacles facing big corporations in conquering what analysts call the "last frontier" of supermarket retailing.
Organised retail or chain stores accounts for just four percent of India's 350 billion dollar retail industry and small "mom and pop" retailers fear they will be undercut and forced out of business.
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