this story originally appeared in on sep 21 2012 london the government may have spread the red carpet out for overseas retailers last week but the political heat its reforms burst has generated means that footfalls on this carpet will be few for now and those who plan to tread it will only do so gingerly after last novembers experience when the government was forced to freeze its decision to allow foreign firms into the retail sector global retailers are choosing to adopt a wait and watch attitude to decision permitting foreign retailers to invest in indias supermarkets sector at the global retail industrys annual schmoozefest world retail congress taking place in london the indian participation is strong but the outside interest in the country is as arvind singhal of technopak put it good but not good enough as one londonbased private equity and real estate consultant says all my clients ask about india but they dont seem quite ready to put their money in it speaking on the sidelines of the congress lucy neville rolfe board member of tesco britains biggest retailer was clear were glad about the progress that has been made in india but there are conditions we have to study the impact of the conditions the consensus response to the reforms given what happened last year investors want to be assured this time the decision will stick as the international business director of a major european food retailer said the fact that reforms were withdrawn last year parliament sessions are aborted regularly no policy gets through constant changes in policy it does not make for confidence for a global manager not everyone is aware of the intricacies of policymaking in india and the big question being asked is will this have to go through parliament it does not but the fear is that in that case its a nonstarter pankaj ghemawat management guru and a professor at iese business school in barcelona is of the view that companies like walmart which changed its global model to partner with bharti in india is better placed to take advantage of the changes than anyone doing a cold start the domestic political environment may have changed but global investors arent aware of that after last november theres still some scepticism the jury is still out on whether these reforms are really about manmohan singh finally putting his foot on the pedal or are these just some more political we have to do something imperatives he said at the world retail congress a variety of questions seemed to bob up how do we tackle the statewise division is india getting federalised like the european union what will that mean for my business plan a senior official of a major retailer noted that while it was all very fine for big ticket names such as walmart and tesco because they already have local partners for others finding an indian partner with the