ONDC a 'game-changer' in democratising e-commerce business: Piyush Goyal

Bengaluru: Union Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal on Friday exuded confidence that the Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC), a Unified Payments Interface-type protocol, would democratise the e-commerce businesses by onboarding six crore small retailers.

Addressing reporters here, Goyal said, "The ONDC has that ability to transform the e-commerce sector not only in India, but also in the whole world because, like UPI, it will democratise or make e-commerce available to the common man and connect the 60 million or six crore small retailers all over the country." The ONDC was launched in five cities in April.

The ONDC will offer small retailers an opportunity to provide their services, goods, products to the buyers across the country through an e-commerce system, where buyers will be able to purchase the products, which are sold on any platform, Goyal explained. He added that the sellers on any one platform will have the ability to sell to buyers coming on to any platform. "So basically, it's a marriage between buyers and sellers, marriage between platforms, which will connect big and small sellers, give them greater choice.

The consumer will get greater choice," the union minister said. According to him, the ONDC initiative will help bring down costs and also help save millions of jobs and millions of small shops all across the country. In Bengaluru, Beta Test has begun on ONDC and it is not for public launch yet, the minister said adding, the beta launch was done in the city for food and grocery items to test the system. "We saw very good results in Bengaluru. We've seen that the process works. People go onto one platform. They can choose their supplier from some other platform. They can choose their payment mechanism irrespective of whether he's on that platform. They can choose the delivery, a corner store or other logistics companies," he added. According to Goyal, ONDC is a 'massive game-changing technology,' which needs a long testing phase.