New Delhi: Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal on Tuesday invited all big and small retailers to join the government-promoted Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC) as it would help in creating huge opportunities for everybody. ONDC aims to promote an open platform for all aspects of e-commerce retail. It would help small retailers expand their business through e-commerce mediums and reduce the dominance of giants in the sector. It is a non-profit company, which is formulating a set of standards for voluntary adoption by sellers or logistics providers, or payments gateway operators.
ONDC will require an undertaking from each participant at the time of onboarding that it will comply with the policy in its entirety. While addressing an event, Goyal said, "We would like to invite everybody to be part of this journey in a free and fair manner and nobody will be discriminated against. It is open to all. ONDC is open for business."
The industry ministry and the consumer affairs ministry are working together to ensure that the grievances of consumers are addressed. "We are making sure that this platform remains absolutely agnostic to any influence," Goyal said, adding that the platform would allow the e-commerce sector to flourish without damaging a large section of stakeholders and small retailers. It would allow small retailers to participate in this journey of new technologies and new ways of doing business.
"ONDC threatens nobody. Even big e-commerce is not threatened. It only unlocks and opens the doors of opportunity," he added. The platform, he said, is using a system of creating an inter-operable network, allowing different platforms to collaborate and create an interface to help the buyers and sellers. "ONDC will be the transformational e-commerce platform not just in India but across the world, in the years to come," he said. On the public procurement portal GeM, he said, it has saved Rs 40,000 crore taxpayers' money.
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