The man behind Aadhaar, the largest digital identification project in the world, and India’s widely praised payments revolution has discovered a new passion: democratising burgers and biryani. Chairman of Infosys Ltd. Nandan Nilekani’s newest venture into public-policy evangelism, Open Network Digital Commerce, is already causing concern for restaurant delivery systems. But it goes beyond just goods and food. In India, an unbundling of e-commerce might ruin investments worth billions of dollars. To watch where the government-backed project goes, Walmart Inc. is hesitantly supporting it. As of now, Amazon.com Inc. has decided to work with ONDC to integrate all of its logistics services, from pickup to delivery.
If China pioneered the quick-response, or QR, code revolution, India has made only one significant financial contribution in the previous seven years: the Unified Payments Interface. This innovative concept has made deposits spread across many banks as simple to use a smartphone to spend cash. An alternative to the current platform-centric model is offered by ONDC. Digital commerce becomes more accessible to buyers and sellers by moving the diversified Indian bazaar of products and services online. Any partnering app can be used by customers to tap into it and start a search for an item. They can use their favourite seller app to connect with the network's thousands of sellers who sell on ONDC across the nation.
The cautions and threats give ONDC’s technocratic appeal an unduly statist undertone. Even while they are expanding quickly, internet sales only make up 7% of all trade in India, the majority of which is conducted through millions of mom-and-pop stores. Emerging duopolies in governmental-regulated industries like transport and telecommunications are a serious problem in India.
The concept of segmenting e-commerce seems good in principle. Buyers may search for products using one set of applications, while merchants can submit their inventory and logistics companies can advertise their services using another set of apps.