Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT) will launch a nation-wide protest if the government accede to the e-commerce player’s demand to change or delay the implementation of revised FDI norms for e-commerce.

The deadline for implementation of the policy was February 1, 2019.

Addressing mediapersons here on Wednesday, Praveen Khandelwal, National Secretary General, CAIT, said the e-commerce players are lobbying and deploying pressure tactics in nexus with the US chambers, to amend the revised FDI norms.

“As a body that represents seven crore small businesses in the country and 40,000 trade federation, we strongly oppose any changes. To accede to their demand is not good for the trading community,” he said.

Khandelwal said, “We want the government to institute a thorough probe in the business activities of these players in the last 2-3 years. They should be strictly penalised if any violation found.”

This comes at the back of reports that the major online retailers have approached the government seeking extension in the implementation of FDI norms. The revised FDI norms state that the e-commerce players cannot sell products from companies they have stake in. Also, e-commerce companies with foreign funds have to compulsorily operate as a marketplace and not an inventory model. For instance, Amazon holds stakes in Cloudtail India and Appario Retail and will not be able to sell their wares.

In addition, if the sale of a particular vendor goes beyond 25 per cent, the inventory of that vendor would be seen controlled by the platform. According to the industry experts, it will have a huge impact on Amazon and Flipkart, leading e-commerce players in the country.

The CAIT has also demanded that the government should make it mandatory for the e-commerce companies to obtain compliance certificate by March 31, 2019 and the companies that has not complied should be restricted from operating their e-commerce portals. “They should also be restricted from receiving any funds,” Khandelwal demanded.

Online retail is gaining traction in India and is expected to grow by 31 per cent to $40 billion by 2019. India’s e-commerce is growing at the rate of 51 per cent, from $39 billion in 2017 to $120 billion in 2020.

At this juncture, Khandelwal said there is a need for fair and transparent e-commerce platform with a level playing field.

CAIT already had meetings with the commerce minister and DIPP secretary. Khandelwal said, “We will meet the Commerce Minister and make representation to the Finance Minister next week. We will also write to the Prime Minister apprising him of the ground reality and seek his intervention in this critical issue.”

“We have been told e-commerce policy is under formulation and we have given our inputs for the same,” he added.

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