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The final version of the e-commerce policy, which is likely to be circulated in a few weeks by the Commerce Ministry for comments by stakeholders, will incorporate not just the inputs of the task-force on e-commerce but also the views of members of the think-tank, which includes industry representatives, domain experts and members of various government departments.
“The report of the task-force on e-commerce is not the final draft. It is a discussion paper, which was scrutinised by the think-tank headed by Commerce and Industry Minister on Monday. All members of the think-tank, including the industry, domain experts and government officials, gave their comments on the proposals, and will form part of the final draft,” the official said.
Prominent industry bodies like CII, Ficci, and Nasscom and e-commerce companies such as Ola, Snapdeal and MakeMyTrip are part of the think-tank.
The submissions by the task-force seem to be going against the interest of large foreign companies and in favour of smaller domestic firms.
Govt intervention
US-based companies such as Walmart and Amazon could be hurt if these recommendations are adopted, and these giants are reportedly considering asking the US government to intervene.
“All will get the opportunity to comment on the draft policy once it is finalised and put on the web-site. The draft policy may actually be different from the task- force’s recommendations in some areas,” the official said.
On regulating deep-discounts, the task-force has recommended a sunset clause, which will define the maximum duration of differential pricing strategies implemented by e-commerce companies. It has proposed that the restriction on e-commerce marketplace to not directly or indirectly influence the sale price of goods and services, be extended to group companies of the e-commerce marketplace.
The task-force has also suggested promoting sale of domestically-produced goods by allowing limited inventory-based B2C model, wherein 100 per cent Made in India products will be sold through platforms whose founder/promoter will be a resident Indian, the platform company will be controlled by Indian management and foreign equity will not exceed 49 per cent.
On data localisation, the task-force has proposed that the data generated by users in India from various sources including e-commerce platforms, social media and search engines should be stored exclusively in India and a framework must be developed for sharing the data within the country.
Once the final draft is put in public domain and comments of all stakeholders are received, the policy will be modified and then placed before the Cabinet for approval, the official added.
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