Reliance Stores In Punjab Seek Chief Ministers Help Amid Farmers Protest
The owners said they are in a deep financial crisis and moving towards bankruptcy as they have not been getting any rental incomes for the past 7-8 months because all Reliance retail outlets are closed due to farmer protests.They said the agitating farmers have put their tents outside various stores.Reliance has around 275 stores in Punjab and all of them are shut they said.We are bearing losses in crores as the buildings are on loans from banks and we have to bear the burden of huge EMIs municipal taxes, electricity and water charges, etc. Moreover, the livelihood of lakhs of workers, employees and their families has also been adversely affected said Prabhnoor Singh Walia from Kapurthala in a statement here.We are all Punjabis and fully support the farmers but such forced closure of Reliance stores is only harming Punjab, as Reliance procures a lot of products locally provides huge direct and indirect employment to Punjabis and pays huge taxes to the state.No corporate would be interested to invest in the state if they are not allowed to operate peacefully said Dharampal Singh Nain from Jagraon.Nirmal Singh from Jalandhar said We have borrowed loans and invested all our hard earned money in the properties, but such forced closure is ruining us.We also appeal to the farmers associations to carry on their protest peacefully against the government but allow Reliance to open its stores.Reliance Industries Limited (RIL) has already said in a regulatory filing that it has no plans of entering contract or corporate farming, and it has not purchased any agricultural land in India for the purpose of contract farming said Manav Sandhu from Taran Taran.
