NEW DELHI/BENGALURU: The Open Network Digital Commerce (ONDC) – the UPI equivalent of e-commerce – is all set to be launched in April with 10 companies fully integrated with the ONDC framework.
“We will do a soft launch in April in five cities – Bengaluru, Delhi, Bhopal, Coimbatore and Shillong. As many as 10 companies are in the advanced stage of rolling out their products based on the ONDC framework within April,” Anil Agarwal, additional secretary, Department of promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT), said in an exclusive interaction with TNIE. The 10 companies include Paytm, Phone Pe, Dunzo, Go Frugal, and Good Box.
The government is planning a massive expansion of the network in the next three-four months. According to Agarwal, as many as 80 big companies are in active discussion with the government to be part of the platform. “These companies are coming on their own because they see value in ONDC. It makes tremendous business sense for them to be part of this network.”
ONDC was formed in December last year to create an open public digital infrastructure to transform the digital commerce ecosystem in India. At present, the e-commerce space is dominated by big players such as Amazon, Flipkart and Reliance, apart from many new entrants in this space.
ONDC received an early investment from the Quality Council of India (QCI) and Protean eGov Technologies Limited. There are 20 big and large companies that have agreed to take equity in ONDC, which is a non-profit company (Section 8) company.
SBI has picked a 7.84% stake in the open network for Rs 10 crore. Kotak Mahindra Bank, HDFC Bank and Axis Bank have also acquired 7.84% stake. Small Industries Development Bank of India (SIDBI) and public sector lender Punjab National Bank are the latest entrants to acquire a stake in (ONDC). They both picked up 7.84% and 5.97% stakes for Rs 10 crore each.
Agarwal says Once a retailer gets on the ONDC app, he actually does not get registered with a particular platform but he gets registered with a common ONDC registry.