Indian giant Reliance Industries has frozen plans to bring a Western-style "retail revolution"to the nation's biggest state amid bitter opposition from small traders, an official said Wednesday.
Reliance has suspended retail operations and is handing out "termination notices"to around 1,000 of its 2,800 store employees in Uttar Pradesh state, said the senior company official, who did not wish to be named.
"We won't force ourselves into a state where we're not wanted. We won't push ourselves into a state. We won't operate (there) until we get clearance,"the official said.
Reliance's setback underlines obstacles facing big retailers in modernising India's small shopkeeper landscape of 15-million "mom-and-pop"outlets which fear being forced out of business by lower prices and plastic-wrapped produce
