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E-commerce rules: CAIT calls for strict monitoring
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SME Times News Bureau | 25 Jul, 2021
Describing the draft e-commerce rules as a perfect set of guidelines for
conducting structured and transparent e-commerce business in India, the
Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT) has said that the rules if
implemented would end the crony capitalism that allegedly exists in the
current e-commerce scenario in the country.
The traders' body has
also suggested to come up with a monitoring mechanism to ensure
compliance of these regulations by the online majors. In a letter to the
Ministry of Consumer Affairs, it has also suggested the penal actions
should be taken in case the rules are violated.
CAIT Secretary
General Praveen Khandelwal said that the foreign funded e-tailers and
some of the prominent industry chambers are giving lame arguments to
oppose draft rules.
He noted that it is a "sinister trap" of
vested interests of companies duly supported by industry chambers to
dislodge the draft rules. However, more than eight crore small
businesses of the country are committed to oppose any wrong narrative if
anyone tries to build around the draft rules, Khandelwal said.
He
added that inclusive growth of e-commerce business in India largely
depends on four core fundamentals -- transparent operations of
e-commerce platforms, easy accessibility and adequate grievance
redressal by e-commerce entities, non-discriminatory access of
marketplace platforms to all stakeholders of the value-chain, avoidance
of conflict of interest between marketplace platforms, sellers and
various service providers on the platform.
The organisation
further said that any marketplace having an equity or economic interest
in any entity should not be allowed to sell goods on the said
marketplace and it should be treated as "affiliated entity".
In
its submission, the CAIT argued that mandatory registration of
e-commerce entities conducting business through any e-mode should lay
the substantial foundation of a well-defined eco-system and the extent
of e-commerce landscape can easily be gauged with the registration
process and shall protect consumers from rogue or fraudulent e-commerce
companies.
Transparency should be the hallmark of any business
activity and every e-commerce marketplace must therefore act in a
transparent manner with respect to all stakeholders, namely - the
customer, sellers, logistics partners and payment gateways, it said.
Therefore,
all sorts of agreement between the platform and sellers registered on
the said platform should be disclosed in a transparent manner disclosing
all information about the sellers and products to the consumer at the
pre-purchase stage, according to the traders' body.
Further, the
search algorithm used by the e-commerce marketplace must be
transparently disclosed and displayed to the users so that they can make
informed choices.
Among other suggestions, CAIT has said that it
must be ensured that consumers can reach out to senior grievance
redressal officers of the marketplace entities to resolve their concerns
and therefore the provision of appointment of Grievance Officer, Nodal
Officer nd Compliance Officer is laudable.
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