ONDC to be gradually expanded to more cities: Goyal

ONDC is a set of standards for voluntary adoption by sellers or logistics providers or payment gateways. The objective is to democratise the fast-growing e-commerce sector in the country to help small retailers and reduce the dominance of existing retail giants.

It provides small retailers the freedom to choose any logistics player and seller platform based on different parameters like location and rates.

“Yes, certainly,” Goyal said when asked whether they are planning to expand the ONDC to more cities after the pilot phase in five cities.

“ONDC is going to be gradually scaled up because it’s in beta testing (phase now). We would like to keep scaling it up to figure out how robust the technology is, how simple it is to operate, and the kind of capacities we will require for data storage and management as we grow. So, it is still a work in progress,” Goyal said.

The initiative is also
aimed at curbing the dominance of two large multinational e-commerce players – Walmart-backed Flipkart and Amazon – which control more than half of the country’s e-commerce trading, limit access to the market and give preferential treatment to certain sellers and squeeze supplier margins.

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The
ONDC was launched in five cities in April – Delhi-NCR, Bengaluru, Bhopal, Shillong and Coimbatore.

“ONDC is a democratisation of the digital commerce world. It can trigger off many startups to bring technology into the remotest corners of India,” the minister said.

He visited an ONDC-led store in Coimbatore last month.

As many as 20 organisations have confirmed investments of Rs 255 crore for the ONDC. Lenders such as the

, , , and , have committed investments.

When asked about the proposed e-commerce policy, Goyal said a lot of inter-ministerial consultations are going to align the views of different ministries and ensure a robust e-commerce ecosystem is developed in India, which is transparent, fair and can provide equal opportunity to all the stakeholders.