: How ONDC is set to be Indias UPI moment for e-commerce #IndiaNEWS #India New Delhi: India is attempting several big reforms in the technology sector to allow local businesses thrive amid anti-market

How ONDC is set to be Indias UPI moment for e-commerce #IndiaNEWS #India
New Delhi: India is attempting several big reforms in the technology sector to allow local businesses thrive amid anti-market practices from Big Tech and according to Shireesh Joshi, Chief Business Officer (CBO) and President, Network Expansion for the Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC), the goal is to create population-scale inclusion of e-commerce in the country.
With ONDC, a Unified Payments Interface (UPI)-type initiative of the Ministry of Commerce and Industry to promote open networks, the government is trying to create the largest interoperable open platform in a bid to break e-commerce monopolies and build a more democratised digital marketplace by bringing micro, small, and medium enterprise as well as small traders online.
Currently, only 5-6 per cent of Indias retail activity is digital.
There are several limitations and constraints of existing platform based e-commerce that will be solved by unbundling and creating interoperability that will further allow any kind of product or service, whether as B2B or B2C, to be transacted on ONDC, Joshi told IANS in an interview.
One of the immediate outcomes of this unbundling and interoperability is that every seller will have access to every buyer, and vice versa.
Scale that was limited to a few players will now be available to everyone and help in democratising. E-commerce majors are also in conversation with us for onboarding on ONDC. This is not an anti-anyone initiative, Joshi elaborated.
The democratisation and innovation that will result from ONDC will allow all kinds of players to flourish and we will need all these multiple models of e-commerce to help achieve the goal of population-scale inclusion, he stressed.
Union Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal has announced that ONDC will gradually be expanded to more cities in the near future, as it has the potential to connect the entire farm value chain.
The Centre also envisions ONDC as a private sector-led, non-profit company to bring focus on ethical and responsible behaviour while providing for trust, rigorous norms of governance, accountability, and transparency.
According to Joshi, an IIT Kanpur and IIM Bangalore alumnus, for farmers and farmer producer organisations (FPOs), the UPI-type protocol will enable access to a much wider market.
Your neighbourhood fruit seller might claim that the Apples he sells are from Himachal, or the litchees are from Muzaffarpur. But you may not have a way of being sure. But on ONDC you may be able to buy directly from an orchard in Himachal or UP and be sure, Joshi noted.
Farms and orchards can become brands too and realise better pricing than as commodities through a multi-tier trading and distribution system.

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