Global Economy

Government to put draft e-commerce policy up for wide ranging consultation


NEW DELHI: The Department Of Industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP) will put the draft e-commerce policy up for broad based consultation and seek comments for a period of ten days, once it is finalised. The department is in the process of finalising the policy and has already discussed issues related to logistics and exports with stakeholders.

“The draft e-commerce policy will be put up for comments for ten days once it is final. The government will ask for online comments for the draft,” said an official in the know of the details.

DIPP is now the nodal agency for all matters related to e-commerce and has begun fresh discussions for a policy to regulate the e-commerce sector, after the Department of Commerce floated a draft policy in July.

“We are in the process of drafting the new e-commerce policy,” said DIPP secretary Ramesh Abhishek at the sidelines of an event, on Thursday.

The government has also set up a group of secretaries to look into the issues of the sector after concerns were raised on some proposals of the commerce department’s draft e-commerce policy.

Deep discounts and the predatory pricing by e-commerce players has been a key area of concern. Domestic retailers, led by the Confederation of All India Traders and All India Online Vendors Association (AIOVA) have red flagged deep discounting and loss funding by online companies, saying it is against the extant foreign direct investment norms.

“Till now, none of our consultations have been sought or included despite multiple requests. Now that it will be open to public, we will ask all sellers to write directly to the department. We hope sellers’ issues are given weightage,” said an AIOVA member.

The issue also came up at a recent meeting to improve India’s ease of doing business ranking and industry representations made to commerce and industry minister Suresh Prabhu.

The initial draft fell through as stakeholders questioned the role of the commerce department and opposed key suggestions on data localisation, setting up of an e-commerce regulator, move to allow 49% foreign investment in inventory-based online retail and preference for RuPay.





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