ONDC may make e-commerce more inclusive, accessible for consumers: Govt

Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC) is likely to make e-commerce more inclusive and accessible for consumers, government told the parliament. Consumers can discover any seller, product or service by using any compatible application or platform using ONDC. Responding to a question on ONDC, Minister of State for Commerce and Industry Som Parkash told the Lok Sabha that the platform will also enable consumers to match demand with the nearest available supply.

He added this platform would provide consumers with the freedom to choose their preferred local businesses, standardise operations (cataloguing, inventory management, order management and order fulfillment), promote inclusion of local suppliers, drive efficiencies in logistics and lead to enhancement of value for consumers.

Small businesses can use ONDC compatible applications instead of being strong-armed by platform-specific policies, providing multiple options to become discoverable over network and conduct business. ONDC, according to the minister, would also encourage easy adoption of digital means.

The Union Minister said that ONDC will be based on open-sourced methodology and use open specifications and open network protocols independent of any specific platform.

He further explained, “The foundations of ONDC are to be open protocols for all aspects in the entire chain of activities in exchange of goods and services, similar to hypertext transfer protocol for information exchange over internet, simple mail transfer protocol for exchange of emails and unified payments interface for payments.”

These open protocols will be utilised to establish public digital infrastructure by the way of open registries and open network gateways to enable information exchange between providers and consumers. Both the parties (providers and consumers) can use compatible application of choice to exchange information and carry out transactions over ONDC.