ONDC merchants expected to multiply in coming year: MD & CEO Koshy

The government-promoted Open Network for Digital Commerce has around 3 lakh merchants and the count is expected to multiply in the coming year, ONDC MD & CEO Thampy Koshy said on Thursday.

"We started with 600 merchants on-board in January last year. At present there are around 3 lakh merchants (on-boarded). In the coming year we expect this will be multiplying and build its momentum. At least ten times growth I expect in the coming year," Koshy said on the sidelines of an event here.

He further said that ONDC witnessed 67 lakh transactions in January, and he expects a 20-30 per cent growth in monthly transactions going forward.

Koshy was speaking after an agreement signing ceremony between QCI and ONDC at the launch of the DigiReady Certification (DRC) portal.

For the DRC initiative, QCI in conjunction with ONDC aim to assess and certify digital readiness of MSME entities. With the help of an online self-assessment tool, MSMEs can evaluate their preparedness to seamlessly onboard as sellers on the ONDC platform, thereby expanding their digital capabilities and business potential.

"It is a way of helping people to be ready so that they can join the network as fast as possible. We are expecting that thousands of them will come onboard," Koshy said.

Jaxay Shah, Chairperson of the Quality Council of India (QCI), said, "The launch of the DRC portal marks a pivotal moment in our mission to empower MSMEs and make e-commerce more inclusive and accessible".

ONDC is an initiative of the commerce and industry ministry to create a facilitative model to help small retailers take advantage of digital commerce.

It is not an application, platform, intermediary or software but a set of specifications designed to foster open, unbundled, and inter-operable open networks.