India's Nagpur city set to benefit from tax reform

Mumbai

WHEN Indian retailer Future Group opened a warehouse on the outskirts of Nagpur three years ago to supply its supermarkets, the building was surrounded by dry, barren fields. Now it is only one in an expanse of distribution centres, storage depots and factories.

A dusty provincial city of 2.5 million, Nagpur is at the geographical heart of the sprawling Indian subcontinent. It is also at the heart of the action as Asia's third-largest economy prepares to roll out its biggest fiscal overhaul since independence: a national value-added tax that will replace a proliferation of local levies.