The Scenario in States
Politically, India is divided into 28 states and six federally-administered Union Territories. The political divisions generally follow linguistic and ethnic boundaries rather than geographic transitions. India’s huge size sees climatic conditions in Kashmir having little relation to that in the extreme south. Agribusiness also varies from state to state. In this report, we study two states: Andhra Pradesh and Punjab. Both are agriculturally fertile states and have innovative schemes for attracting FDI. Reliance has recently announced vast amounts of capital investments in the state of Punjab in retail and also value added agriculture. There are immense opportunities for investments in grocery retail in all the Indian states. This situation regarding the food supply chains in India is applicable for all states. The research on food supply chain and the plans for innovation and modernization of these chains are done more by the Central Government rather than by the State Governments. This is unfortunate and one would expect to find a changed situation soon when the private sector investments in the Super markets increase and put the states under pressure to improve agribusiness investments.
