Govt to launch open network for digital commerce in five cities today

The commerce and industry ministry is all set to launch the pilot phase of open network for digital commerce on Friday, a senior official said.

The Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC) is an initiative of the government to promote an open platform for all aspects of the exchange of goods and services through electronic networks.

It will be launched in five cities — Delhi NCR, Bengaluru, Bhopal, Shillong and Coimbatore, the official said on Thursday.

Dynamic pricing, inventory management and optimisation of delivery cost are the three important things in ONDC which will help reduce the cost of doing business for everybody, including retailers.

ONDC has received its certificate of incorporation as a private sector led non-profit company on December 31, 2021.

A number of established companies are already integrated with ONDC.

The government has set up a nine-member advisory council, including Nandan Nilekani from Infosys and National Health Authority CEO R S Sharma, to ascertain steps required to design and accelerate adoption of ONDC.

Through this platform, consumers can potentially discover any seller, product or service by using any ONDC-compatible application or platform, thus increasing freedom of choice for consumers.

Also Read: How Nandan Nilekani is helping build an e-commerce platform to counter Amazon, Walmart-owned Flipkart

So far only bigger players are able to take advantage of e-commerce and small people are still out of it.

Anil Agrawal, additional secretary in the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade, has earlier said that protocols under ONDC would standardise all operations like cataloguing, inventory management, order management and order fulfilment.