The central government has proposed operationalising the Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC) as a private-sector-led, non-profit company to provide foundational network management services such as digital infrastructure, a common registry, certification of participants and certifying agencies, and grievance redressal.
A number of SMEs have been on-boarded as volunteers to complement the ONDC team. An ONDC gateway has also been established. About 20 entities covering all network components are at various stages of on-boarding. DPIIT has approved a budget of approximately Rs100 million for the initial work.
The entity is expected to provide a start-up mindset and to assist SMEs in their digital transformation by developing ready-made tools to help existing software applications quickly adapt to the network.
In a meeting to review the progress of the DPIIT’s ONDC initiative, Union Minister of Commerce and Industry Piyush Goyal stated that wide ecosystem participation should be ensured, special efforts should be made to build trust in the ONDC network, and elaborate mechanisms for dispute resolution should be put in place.
A number of prospective promoters attended the meeting, including senior representatives from State Bank of India, Punjab National Bank, Bank of Baroda, NABARD, SIDBI, National Payments Corporation of India, NSDL, CDSL, NSE, and BSE. Anurag Jain, Secretary, DPIIT, and members of ONDC’s Advisory Council were present, including RS Sharma, CEO, NHA, Adil Zainulbhai, Chairman, QCI, Dilip Asbe, MD&CEO, NPCI, Suresh Sethi, MD&CEO, NSDL-e Gov, Kumar Rajagopalan, CEO, RAI, Arvind Gupta, Founder, MyGov, and Ms Anjali Bansal of Avaana Capital.
