The State Government of Maharashtra has finally given environmental clearance to Sweden-based global furniture retailer IKEA for its Navi Mumbai store.
The Government took around 10 months to grant permission to the retailer.
Environmental clearance became mandatory for IKEA as its Navi Mumbai store would be spread over 20,000 square metres of area.
The whole process of obtaining the approval, however, didn’t augur well for the ‘ease of doing business’ in the state.
The Central Government gave the nod to IKEA in 2013 for an investment of Rs. 10,500 crores to open 25 hyper stores in India. The first store will come up in Hyderabad early next year.
IKEA, which currently operates more than 380 stores in 48 countries, is working extensively to increase its presence in Indian cities.
After getting approvals for Hyderabad, Mumbai and Bengaluru stores, the global furniture retailer has reportedly initiated talks with the Tamil Nadu Government as well to open stores in Chennai by 2019-20.
