Reliance [Get Quote] Retail opened its first hypermarket in Ahmedabad on Tuesday, with plans to open 30 more suchsuperstores across the country at an investment of over Rs 375 crore (Rs 3.75 billion) by this year end.

Ahmedabad's hypermarket, which at over 1,65,000 sq ft is by far the largest retail facility under a single roof, has over 95,000 products ranging from full line of groceries to garments, consumer durables to garden equipment.

"The company will open 30 hypermarkets by this year end of 40,000-60,000 sq ft each," Reliance Hypermarket CEO K Radhakrishnan said.

Although he declined to give details of investments, an informed source said that the company would be spending Rs 2,500-3,000 in developing each sq ft. Radhakrishnan said six malls under the Reliance Mart brand would come up in the national capital, five each in Punjab and Andhra Pradesh, three in Gujarat and two in Bangalore.

Over 500 such superstores are planned by 2010. The hypermarket format is the latest to be unveiled by Reliance Retail, which last year unveiled its fresh food format store Reliance Fresh, followed by consumer electronics
store Reliance Digital.