Ghodawat Consumer Limited (GCL), the FMCG arm of Indian conglomerate Sanjay Ghodawat Group, plans to expand its Star Localmart footprint, the ETRetail reported.

As part of this plan, the retailer will open 3,000 Star Localmart stores in the next five years.

GCL currently operates 80 Star Localmart stores and plans to increase it to 130 by the end of this year.

ETRetail quoted Ghodawat Consumer Limited MD Shrenik Ghodawat as saying: "We will continue with our focus of opening all the stores in tier III and tier IV cities as there is immense potential in the smaller markets within India. There is the disposable income available, and there are just not avenues enough to be able to spend those incomes.”

Star Localmart, claimed to be a rural-first supermarket chain, currently operates stores in the Indian states of Maharashtra and Karnataka.

However, GCL aims to expand it to other Indian states, including Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Goa, Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh in the next two years.

Earlier this year, ANI reported that the company entered the Pune city of Maharashtra state with the opening of a store at Kesnand Wagholi.

Shrenik Ghodawat added: "Going ahead, we are looking at focusing on AP and Telangana for our staples category. We will be entering the southern Karnataka market. We've recently launched Pune and Thane within Maharashtra and we will be looking at entering central Mumbai suburbs. The objective would then be to look at MP as another market for staples."

According to the ETRetail report, Star Localmart stores span 1,000ft² and offer nearly 2,000 to 2,500 stock-keeping units (SKUs) from 500-600 brands.

GCL also operates six manufacturing plants in Maharashtra, Karnataka and Madhya Pradesh and has a network of nearly 1,500 distributors.