The Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT) has approved a budget of about ₹10 crore for initial work on the Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC) initiative and about 20 entities are at various stages of on-boarding the platform, per an official release of the Commerce and Industry Ministry.

The Quality Council of India (QCI) has established a team of experts and a number of small and medium enterprises have been on-boarded as volunteers for execution of the proposed project.

In a review meeting on Tuesday, Commerce & Industry Minister Piyush Goyal said that efforts should be made to compress timelines for making this network a reality soon.

“It has been suggested to establish a private sector led non-profit company. The entity is expected to provide a start-up mindset for a population scale implementation, enabled by a management with a futuristic vision, leadership with a deep understanding of commerce, comfort with cutting edge technology, and missionary outlook to drive change,” the ministry said in a statement.

The ONDC, according to the government, will democratise digital or electronic commerce, moving it from a platform-centric model to an open-network. It will enable buyers and sellers to be digitally visible and transact through an open network, no matter what platform/application they use.

It will also empower merchants and consumers by breaking silos to form a single network to drive innovation and scale, transforming all businesses from retail goods, food to mobility.

Nine-member council

The government has set up a nine-member advisory council, including Nandan Nilekani from Infosys and National Health Authority CEO RS Sharma, on steps required to design and accelerate adoption of ONDC

“It has been suggested to establish a private sector led non-profit company. The entity is expected to provide a start-up mindset for a population scale implementation, enabled by a management with a futuristic vision, leadership with a deep understanding of commerce, comfort with cutting edge technology, and missionary outlook to drive change,” the release stated.

Goyal proposed that wide participation from the ecosystem should be ensured and the institutional structure should be created in such a manner to ensure that the entity conducts itself in an ethical, cooperative, democratic and responsible manner.

He also said that special efforts must be made to build trust in the ONDC network and elaborate mechanisms must be put in place for dispute resolution.