IANS | 25 Apr, 2023
Union
Minister of Commerce & Industry Piyush Goyal said that the Open
Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC) of tomorrow will be a
transformational engine across the world and not only in India during
his address at “Enabling Bharat 2.0”, a one-day workshop conducted by
ONDC today in New Delhi.
The Minister said that he is optimistic about a
significant growth of ONDC in the next few months. He invited all
e-commerce companies, big and small, to join ONDC and be part of this
new bazaar that reimagines digital commerce.
He
mentioned that ONDC will promote local languages, products, and
cultural heritage, and create opportunities for small businesses. He
said that small artisans and workers can offer better quality through
ONDC and also earn better without having to pay commission for their
products.
He emphasized that ONDC will foster healthy competition,
benefit consumers and contribute to the overall growth of the digital
commerce ecosystem in India.
He
said that the Prime Minister believes that our ability to develop
depends on our ability to leverage technology. He said that monolithic
e-commerce platforms will never be able to provide the services of the
kind that a network of platforms like ONDC can offer.
The Minister
highlighted the various sectors that may benefit from ONDC like farmers
who can access bigger markets and demand better prices for their
products, students who can compare prices of books and online courses,
people who can avail health services at the best prices, etc.
He
emphasized on the need to create systems that benefit everyone and
create opportunities for all. He said that the efforts are being
undertaken to ensure that e-commerce becomes an engine of growth that
empowers both buyers and sellers.
The Minister highlighted that ONDC
will unlock doors of opportunities in an inclusive manner for both big
and small businesses, benefitting the entire value chain of commerce. He
said that ONDC will provide a much larger market for sellers, without
any preferred or priority sellers, ensuring equitable and fair treatment
for all stakeholders.
He said that ONDC will foster economies of scale,
competition, and better pricing and quality, ultimately benefiting
consumers. He said that ONDC is customer-centric, keeping in line with
the vision of Mahatma Gandhi, where the customer is king.
The
Minister emphasized that India can only be defined as Bharat, as it
thrives in villages and small habitations across the country. He
mentioned that ONDC is targeting this ‘Bharat’ for inclusive growth,
ensuring that the benefits of e-commerce reach every corner of the
country.
He said that the Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi firmly
believes in solving challenges the Indian way and trusts the people of
India to come up with innovative solutions. He said that ONDC was born
in such a manner when the e-commerce sector was grappling with multiple
challenges and small businesses were under threat.
He highlighted the
need for alternate ways to address these challenges of the e-commerce
ecosystem, while balancing the interests of small retailers and
businesses led to the evolution of ONDC.
The
Minister outlined the unique features of ONDC, which aims to provide a
win-win solution for both buyers and sellers. He said that ONDC, with
its concept of using interfaces between various platforms, will open up
more options for buyers, enhance price discovery and market
opportunities for sellers, and also empower consumers to make informed
choices.
He said that this will result in more competition in the market
and will not be limited through algorithms. He emphasized that ONDC
will enable speedy, efficient, and real-time settlement of transactions,
catering to hyperlocal and global needs simultaneously.
During
his address, the Minister said that ‘Enabling Bharat 2.0’ converges
with the commitment of making India a developed nation by 2047 and it is
desirable to plan for the future. He said that digital public
infrastructure is the need of the hour.
He said that all the efforts of
the government have been citizen centric as was evident during the COVID
pandemic with the development and production of vaccines and the launch
of Co-WIN Vaccinator App to monitor the distribution of vaccines to
everyone in the country.
He
cited the success of initiatives like the Unified Payments Interface
(UPI) in the financial services sector, which has brought about a
transformational journey and encouraged hundreds of fintech companies to
innovate and promote financial inclusion.
He said that UPI has brought
about innovation in the fintech sector at a pace never seen before and
promoted startups and unicorns through socialising valuation. He drew
parallels with ONDC, which is based on a similar concept of
interoperable interface, opening up more options for buyers and creating
more competition, while providing ease of operation for sellers across
multiple platforms and also providing them a bigger market.
The
‘Enabling Bharat 2.0’ workshop has been organized to find potential
synergies and deepen collaboration among the various open
protocol-enabled initiatives and generate awareness amongst multiple
stakeholders.