"Metro continues to be committed to the West Bengal market and looks forward to creating win-win partnerships with farmers as well as small retailers," a company spokesperson said.
"We welcome the decision of the district court as it allows us to resume the construction work for Metro's first full-scale centre in the state."
The commencement of operations will enable Metro Cash & Carry to recall its staff, who were hired for Kolkata, but have been deployed at wholesale centres in Bangalore and Hyderabad.
Work was stopped in March after the Alipore Civil Court directed that the use of the land, which was formerly cultivated, could not be changed.
The court passed the order on a petition by 225-odd claimants for the 7.5-acre plot. About 3 acres of the land was leased from the state government and the rest from the West Bengal Industrial Development Corporation on a rental of Rs 16 crore.
Hiring was stopped following the land problem. Now that the hurdle has been cleared, the company said that it would need a lot of people and so restart the hiring process immediately.
Each of the company's distribution centre was expected to have about 325 people, starting with the one on the EMB in Kolkata.
Metro proposed to set up at least three cash and carry outlets in Kolkata at an investment of Rs 90 crore. The first outlet was to open by December 2007 on the EMB land. Up to 40,000 articles, primarily food items, would be stocked in each of these outlets, to be sold to institutional buyers.
The Metro Cash & Carry model will link farmers, fishermen, livestock farmers, dairy farmers and other manufacturers with institutional buyers.
Over 90 per cent of the products sold would be sourced locally. Much of it would also be exported. Each centre was expected to create an average 300 direct jobs and another 150 indirectly.
