ONDC crosses 5 lakh sellers on its platform with over 70% SMEs: Govt

financialexpress.com:

The ONDC (Open Network for Digital Commerce) platform by the government now has more than 5 lakh sellers, of which over 70 per cent are small or medium-sized sellers, said the Commerce Ministry in a statement. ONDC on Friday organised Startup Mahotsav to encourage India’s growing startups to join the platform. The ministry informed that in April 2024, ONDC facilitated around 7.22 million transactions.

Sanjiv, Joint Secretary, DPIIT (Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade) said that over 125 startups committed on Friday to onboard to the ONDC network as “startups can play a pivotal role in ONDC ecosystem by driving innovation, fostering competition and enhancing consumer choice.” 

Importantly, Som Parkash, Minister of State in the Commerce Ministry in December last year had informed the Parliament that ONDC is actively working with the MSME ministry to onboard MSMEs to the network through existing seller applications and also working to integrate MSME-Mart which has over 2 lakh MSMEs.

Operated by the National Small Industries Corporation (NSIC) under the MSME ministry, MSME-Mart is a business-to-business portal to allow market access for MSMEs through digital presence. 

Meanwhile, a whitepaper Commerce@Bharat by consulting firm Deloitte India in August last year had detailed how ONDC will help the MSME ecosystem to efficiently and cost-effectively address their demand and supplier connect. On the demand side, the paper had noted that ONDC can provide MSME suppliers access to their customers while focusing on their core capabilities of designing and manufacturing products.

In July last year, ONDC had officially launched its ONDC Academy to offer e-learning series for all participants including sellers live