Here’s All that You Should Know About ONDC, Open Network for Digital Commerce

ONDC or the Open Network for Digital Commerce is an initiative of DPIIT (The Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade), which comes under the Ministry of Commerce and Industry of the Government of India and has been created with the aim of providing more opportunities and support for micro, small and medium enterprises and to prevent digital monopolies.

Here are the Features of ONDC

The Open Network for Digital Commerce, ONDC has been formed to introduce democratic practices in the field of digital or electronic commerce, with a vision to prevent unfair trade practices that are currently being followed by giant e-commerce companies like Amazon and Flipkart.

The platform abides by the Information Technology Act of 2000 and adheres to the emerging Personal Data Protection Bill.

ONDC is going to function as an open network where both buyers and sellers become digitally visible and the transactions will take place through the open network. With the open network, ONDC expects to bring digitization to the entire value chain, making operations more standardized, and will also be able to promote the inclusion of suppliers as well. The platform will also gain logistic efficiencies and will increase the value for the customers.

The government of India has also made it clear that the platform will ensure privacy within the network and will be publishing only the anonymized aggregate metrics.

At the moment, the platform is still at its initial or experimental stage and the government of India has formed a nine-member council, which will act as an advisory body in designing and adopting ONDC.