Any marketplace joining ONDC should come with serious commitment: Goyal

Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal said that online retailers who want to join government-promoted ONDC should come with a serious commitment, and not for namesake

Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal on Monday said that online retailers who want to join the government-promoted Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC) should come with a serious commitment, and not for namesake.

ONDC, a non-profit company, formulates a set of standards for voluntary adoption by sellers or logistics providers or payment gateway operators. ONDC will require an undertaking from each participant at the time of onboarding that it will comply with the policy in its entirety.

It aims to promote an open platform for all aspects of e-commerce retail. It would help small retailers expand their business through e-commerce medium.

The minister said that a significant number of sellers on the network is itself a testimony to ONDC's impact as digital commerce is being reimagined.

Any marketplace joining ONDC should come with serious commitment, and not for namesake," Goyal said.

He also pointed out that when a platform comes on ONDC, it should be in the spirit of give and take, and not just simply taking benefit from the network without contributing back to its progress.

The minister was virtually addressing the ONDC Elevate programme in Bengaluru.

From the launch of beta testing on September 29, 2022, ONDC has scaled to 36,000 sellers, and over 45 Network participants.

It is getting a weekly average of over 13,000 retail orders and over 36,000 mobility rides per day with peak transactions reaching 25,000 retail orders a day.