The global retail giant, Walmart plans to open some 25 stores in Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand in addition to its existing 20 stores across the country. The US retailer also plans to open 10 stores each in Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh and Telangana. It is looking at two more stores in Lucknow, in addition to Ghaziabad, Noida, Kanpur, Allahabad, Haridwar, Dehradun and Haldwani. Each store provides direct and indirect employment to 2000 to 2500 persons.

Walmart sees enormous opportunity in Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand where there is little competition from others (such as Metro AG and Reliance) operating in the cash-and-carry format.

The retailer plans to open 50 more cash-and-carry stores in the next few years across key focus states including Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Haryana, Maharashtra etc. It is also eyeing food retail if the norms are eased. It does not want to limit itself to domestically produced and manufactured food products. Walmart feels allowing 100 per cent FDI in food retail is a very progressive step, but having a certain percentage of non-food items in this policy will make it economically viable.

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