The Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT) on Thursday said traders from across the country are expected to participate in a strike against the Walmart-Flipkart deal on September 28.

The confederation has called for a 'Bharat Trade Bandh' on September 28 and a mega traders rally on December 16 in the national capital. CAIT expects about 7 crore traders across country to participate in the Bandh.

CAIT claims that the Walmart-Flipkart deal will destroy the retail trade of India ‘as Walmart will be using e commerce platform to flood the retail market with goods sourced from all over the globe’.

It further claims that not just traders, but domestic manufacturing sector will also be adversely affected.

CAIT is also launching a door to door campaign against the deal and against FDI in Retail and will launch a 90 days ‘Digital Path Yatra’. The Yatra will also highlight various other issues of traders such as the need for simplification of GST, robust and transparent e commerce policy, adoption of digital payments, easy access to finance to small businesses through MUDRA yojna, among others.

The yatra will cover about 22 thousand Kilometres area covering 28 States and about 120 prominent cities while about 500 small cities will be covered en-route.

On August 28, the confederation had approached the National Company Law Appellate Tribunal (NCLAT) against the Competition Commission of India (CCI) approval for Walmart-Flipkart deal.

On August 18, Walmart Inc. acquired approximately 77 per cent stake in e-commerce major Flipkart.

Walmart now holds approximately 77 per cent of Flipkart, while the remainder of the business is held by other shareholders, including Flipkart co-founder Binny Bansal, Tencent, Tiger Global and Microsoft Corp.

Walmart's investment includes $2 billion of new equity funding to help accelerate the growth of the Flipkart business and both companies will retain their unique brands and operating structures in India.

With IANS inputs