E-Commerce Sector in India under government priority list

E-Commerce Sector in India under government priority list

In order to provide boost to the Indian economy and encourage foreign investment in the form of FDIs in India, the Indian Government has launched various initiatives since the year 2014. These are namely:

  1. Digital India
  2. Ease of Doing Business in India
  3. Innovation Fund
  4. Make in India
  5. Skill India
  6. Startup India Scheme

This has resulted in increase in foreign company registration in India as well as FDI in India.

In recent years, Indian ecommerce market has seen tremendous growth. India has the second-largest internet market and smartphone market in the world. Further, during COVID pandemic, E-commerce has become the preferred mode of shopping for most of the Indian consumers.

The Indian Government has taken lot of initiatives in the recent past for the promotion of e commerce sector and bringing foreign investments in India. Some of them are mentioned as under:

1.   The following five areas have been identified by the government

  1. Digitization of the retail
  2. Ease of doing business and company registration in India
  3. Focusing on the reforms
  4. Opening a digital commerce network
  5. Rationalizing the license procedure

 

These are integral part of the e-commerce and offline retail sector that needs to be properly administered.

  1. The data shows that till August 2021, the Government e-Marketplace (GeM) portal has completed about 7.23 Million orders that are worth Rs. 127,231 Crores to the 53,575 buyers from the registered 2.40 Million sellers and service providers in the portal.
  1. In October 2019, a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) has been signed between the Government e-Marketplace (GeM) and the Union Bank of India for facilitating a payment system that is transparent, paperless, cashless and totally digital or online for an array of services provided by different
  1. An amendment in the Equalization Levy Rules, 2016 has been made in October 2020, through which the Government has mandated the companies operating in the e-commerce sector to have their PAN (Permanent Account Number). Also, 2% taxes have been imposed in the Budget 2021 on selling and delivery of goods and services by any e-commerce, non-resident operator.
  1. The Minister of Commerce and Industry, Mr. PiyushGoyal, in October 2020 has invited all the startups to register in the Gem Portal, Public Procurement Portal for offering various goods and services to Public Sector Undertakings (PSUs) and government entities,
  1. The Ministry of Consumer Affairs in July 2020 has notified the Consumer Protection (E-Commerce) Rules 2020. The e-commerce companies are directed to display the country of origin on the product listing. Also, these companies are asked to reveal the parameters regarding the determining of the product listing on their respective platforms or pages.
  1. The Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT) is planning to use an Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC) for systematic procedure of adding the retailers on the e-commerce websites and applications. This will help in setting up protocols for vendor discovery, price discovery and cataloguing. The objective behind this is to provide equal opportunities to all the marketplace for optimally utilization of the e-commerce environment for the interest of the customers and the country.
  1. Also, the Government has made hefty investments to boost the e-commerce industry by rolling out the 5G fiber network.

Thus, it may be seen from above that Indian government has taken lot of initiatives and this sector is under the priority list of government of India. Also, this sector provides  a lot of opportunity for both Indian and foreign players for investment.