Will relaxations for Flipkart, Amazon make it to final e-commerce policy?
The Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) is examining the national e-commerce policy to understand its potential impact on domestic retailers and small players, two people aware of the matter said. “The policy is in its final stage and will be released soon after the approval by the PMO," said one of the people, adding the much-awaited policy will protect the interests of both consumers and industry.
The development is significant given the draft policy framed by the Union commerce ministry has recommended relaxations for companies that operate on e-marketplace business models such as Amazon, Flipkart and others. The evaluation by the PMO follows a meeting on 2 August conducted by the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT), which is formulating the national e-commerce policy, with all stakeholders including representatives of e-commerce firms and a domestic traders’ body.
The relaxations suggested in the policy include separate norms for marketplace and inventory models of e-commerce on appointment of nodal grievance officers, no mandatory registration on the Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC) for e-commerce majors, no provision for setting up of an independent regulator for online retail platforms; etc. Queries sent to the PMO, ministries of commerce and consumer affairs, secretaries of DPIIT and consumer affairs, and Amazon and Flipkart remained unanswered till press time.
An e-commerce industry leader who spoke on condition of anonymity expressed concern that these relaxations may not make it to the final policy given that e-commerce is highly contentious, and relaxations are opposed by conventional retailers. “The current e-commerce scenario has an uneven playing field, giving many
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