Reliance Fresh -- Start of the 'Indian' Walmart?

Just read the news that the Mukesh Ambani lead 'Reliance Group' opened its first set of 11 grocery stores in Banjara Hills, Hyderabad. Named as 'Reliance Fresh', the opening of this store is just the beginning of the great plans of Reliance to open Reliance Retail stores all over India. According to Forbes, Reliance is planning on investing $5.6 billion (Yeah, it is billion) in establishing retail stores like Walmart across the country. It seems the plan is to open department stores, supermarkets in 784 Indian cities & 6,000 towns by 2011.



How does it impact the 'Average' Indian? It means that we get to get quality products at cheaper prices from one of the best brand names of our country. It also means that reliance has a heads-up in the retail market assuming that 'Super Giants' of retailing like Walmart are allowed to enter India to setup their operations. Most importantly, it means that Indian's hard-earned money does not go into the pockets of some western country & would probably be used effectively for developing our country itself.

Let's keep our fingers crossed for sometime and play the wait & watch game.