Jammu: Scores of traders on Sunday staged a protest against opening of a Reliance retail store here and threatened to intensify their agitation to “safeguard” small businesses.
The protesters led by president of Chamber of Commerce and Industries (CCI) Jammu Arun Gupta and president of Traders Federation Ware House Nehru Market Deepak Gupta assembled outside the Reliance store near Jewel chowk in the heart of the city and held a peaceful ‘dharna’ (sit-in), officials said.
They said policemen were deployed in strength to maintain law and order.
“We are holding this protest to express our anguish over the opening of Reliance retail store which will ruin the small shopkeepers and force them to close down as they cannot compete with these big companies,” Deepak Gupta said.
He said they have been continuously appealing to the administration to take steps to save the small traders of Jammu but “no plea is being heard”.
“Now the government has given permission to Reliance Smart Bazaar store in Jammu. This store will sell everything from groceries to medicines and electronics to liquor. Who will go to the small shopkeepers running their shops in the streets?” he asked.
Gupta threatened to intensify their agitation by pouring on the roads, holding ‘dharnas’ and going for a hunger strike if the administration did not revoke its permission to the Reliance retail store.
Expressing similar views, CCI’s Arun Gupta president appealed to the administration not to allow business tycoons to open another store in Jammu as it will directly affect the sales of small shopkeepers, who are already struggling for their sustenance due to rising inflation and several other issues concerning their business.
“Allowing Reliance to open new stores will prove fatal for the small businesses in the region which should not be the case as the government has the responsibility to look after one and all in the Union Territory,” he said.
Extending support to the traders, senior Congress leader and former minister Yogesh Sawhney criticised the administration for opening Reliance stores in Jammu and said “the small shopkeepers in the streets will incur huge losses once these stores are up and running, as they will attract the majority of customers”.
“As these corporate owned stores will carry everything from grocery to medicines and now even liquor, the local businesses will find it very hard to compete and consequently lose a lot of business to them,” Sawhney said.
The former minister said the job and the promise of the BJP government at the Centre was to protect the local interests of the people of Jammu when they had scrapped Article 370.
“Since the revocation of Article 370 (in 2019), we have only seen an attempt to dilute the existing local systems in a manner which is deteriorating not elevating the economy of Jammu,” he said. (With PTI inputs)
