World’s largest retail chain Wal-Mart India Pvt. Ltd, signed a MoU with the government of Telangana on Saturday to set up 10 cash-and-carry stores across the state in the next five years. This is a huge step from the retail giant in their plan to expand over the country. Wal-Mart has 21 operating stores across India now and are wishing to establish 50 more stores out of which 10 would be in Telangana.
The event had the representative of Walmart South Asia Dirk Van Bergh and Walmart India president,CEO KrishIyer along with IT minister of Telangana government, Mr.K.T.Rama Rao. “Ten stores is a big commitment. Four of them will be set-up in Hyderabad, while the others will come up in districts of Karimnagar, Nizamabad and other places. We would like to plan more stores depending on the GDP growth in Telangana,” said KrishIyer. The company will invest between $10 to 12 million per store. The representatives said they’d open one store now and would start two more stores and are concentrating in sub-urban and urban areas. In an area of 50,000 square feet, serving around 3 lakh customers at a time, all the stores would run “cash-and-carry” basis. Interestingly the first Wal-Mart cash and carry store was opened in Hyderabad in 2012.
“Each store would provide around 2000 jobs. The government is trying to bring a new retail policy. It will have a heavy focus on better facilitation and speedy clearances. We would help Wal-Mart organization to get all the required approvals easily,” said Telangana information technology (IT) minister K.T. Rama Rao. He added that Wal-Mart’s forte is to start new stores in Tier-2 and 3 cities or small places. Rao also mentioned that the state government is planning to establish the farmer organizations, and hoped that Wal-Mart India can also help small marginal farmers across Telangana. The event also had JayeshRanjan, Principal Secretary, Department of IT, Telangana and Rajneesh Kumar, senior vice-president and head, corporate affairs, Wal-Mart India.
