E-commerce Guidelines ON ONDC
India’s e-commerce market is projected to grow from $83 billion in 2022 to $150 billion in 2026, according to the FIS 2023 Global Payments Report.
In 2019, (https://pib.gov.in/Pressreleaseshare.aspx?PRID=1575760) the Ministry of Commerce & Industry came up with a draft National e-Commerce policy that has been prepared and placed in public domain which addresses six broad areas of the e-commerce ecosystem viz. data, infrastructure development, e-commerce marketplaces, regulatory issues, stimulating domestic digital economy and export promotion through e-commerce. The Policy takes into account the interests of all stakeholders, like investors, manufacturers, MSMEs, traders, retailers, startups and consumers.
The New Update on E-commerce Policy, 2023: The government is working on a proposal to bring out the policy for online retailers and e-commerce rules under the consumer protection act on the same page to protect consumers, a top official said on March, 2023. Secretary of the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT) Rajesh Kumar Singh said that once the e-commerce policy will be finalised, it will be put up in the public domain for views.
While the topic of the new update on bringing new E-commerce Policy, Secretary of DPIIT additionally suggested that The government also has to strike a balance between interests of over 80 million ‘kirana’ stores and ‘online giants’ while framing such policies and rules. “One of the ways is to provide hassle-free benefit of technology to domestic retailers without any riders, hence the government has recently launched the Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC),” he added. According to an industry estimate e-commerce is currently 6% of India’s about $900 billion retail sector and expanding very fast. It is, however, dominated by global majors such as Amazon and Walmart-owned Flipkart.On April 24, 2023 drawing parallel with government’s fintech revolution through Unified Payments Interface (UPI), commerce minister said, ONDC is also based on a similar concept of interoperable interface. Contrary to any popular e-commerce marketplace operating in India, which is a monolithic business entity, ONDC is designed to become a bouquet of independent platforms giving wider choices to the buyer and providing bigger market to the seller, he said.