ONDC To Open For Beta Testing With Public The ministry issued a statement in which it is said that the number of network participants on the platform would soon be above 30 in the upcoming weeks
By Teena Jose
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The government, on Tuesday, said that the country's open public digital infrastructure framework entity, open network for digital commerce (ONDC) plans to start beta testing the network with public users. Piyush Goyal, commerce and industry minister had chaired a meeting to review the progress of ONDC. After the meeting, the ministry issued a statement in which it is said that the network participants on the platform would soon be above 30 in the upcoming weeks.
"ONDC expects the number of network participants to substantially increase to more than 30 in the coming weeks. Building on this, ONDC plans to start beta-testing the network with public users in limited areas," said the minister in the statement.
In the meeting, Goyal significantly pointed out that it was crucial to remember that the basic purpose of ONDC was to assist small, non-digitized trader, and assist them to get digitized and avail opportunities offered by the e-commerce ecosystem.
"Existing e-commerce platforms are popular because they remain consumer focused and have created robust trust in their platforms based on their ability to deliver on promises made about products, fulfillment of orders in time, no-questions-asked returns policies, and consumer friendly refunds and cancellations," said the minister.
Goyal also asked the industry department to work with all state governments and create awareness about the utility of ONDC, devise programs in collaboration with state governments to help small traders, artisans, handicraftsman, farmers, MSMEs take advantage of this open network.
"ONDC will be tested against these benchmarks. The open network must create consumer trust through robust mechanisms for ensuring redressal of grievances of consumers and enforcing transparent policies for returns, refunds and cancellations. These policies are to be implemented at the network level," said the ministry.
