Consumerfed unveils new marketing intervention plan

KOCHI: Market intervention agency Consumerfed (Kerala State Co-operatives Consumers' Federation Ltd) will open 10,000 'Nanma' stores across the state within five years, said Riji G Nair, its managing director.
Consumerfed is one of the governmental organizations that intervenes regularly in the grocery and staple food markets to control inflation. "This year, we will open 2,000 Nanma stores in Kerala.Chief minister Oommen Chandy will inaugurate the project on April 18 in Thiruvananthapuram," Nair said. "These stores will be rather small in size at roughly 200 sq ft, each located at village junctions across the state.
Around 350 different products will be available at these stores, including beauty care products. We plan to sell 10 items at discounted prices every month with the price list published in newspapers. These products will be priced at a 20% discount to local market rates," he added. Each Nanma store will involve investments of Rs 5 lakh, and daily revenues of Rs 8,000 will ensure profitable running of each store, Nair said.
From Tuesday, Consumerfed will operate 3,000 temporary festival stores across the state for the Vishu and Easter holidays, Nair said.
During the last Onam holidays, Consumerfed generated revenues of Rs 250 crore from sales of 47,250 tonnes of products across its 5,132 outlets in the state.
Grants from the state government will not allow Consumerfed to effectively intervene in the market, Nair said. Hence, the organization has been using the profits from its beverages division-- which sells alcoholic drinks through 50 liquor shops in the state --to subsidize various groceries and medicines sold through its 220 Triveni supermarkets and 93 Neethi medical stores.
"The state budget had allocated Rs 40 crore for the activities of Consumerfed in fiscal 2013, and we will spend Rs 100 crore for subsidies by generating Rs 60 crore internally via liquor and grocery sales," Nair said. Last year, Consumerfed spent Rs 67 crore on subsidising groceries. Of this, Rs 35 crore was the profits from the beverages division.