ONDC to help small retailers survive e-comm onslaught: Piyush Goyal

Open Network for Digital Commerce will help small retail survive the onslaught of large tech-based e-commerce companies and that more startups and small companies should work toward integrating mom and pop stores into the e- commerce ecosystem, Piyush Goyal, Minister of Commerce and Industry, Consumer Affairs, Food & Public Distribution and Textiles said on Monday.

Goyal was addressing industry body FICCI’s 12th edition of the consumer-goods focussed Massmerize forum in the capital on Monday.

“Our effort will be to encourage more and more startups, and small companies, even at the local level who will get the small mom-and-pop stores integrated into the e-commerce ecosystem. And just like UPI was able to democratize payment systems, we do hope ONDC will play its role in democratizing or socializing the benefits of e-commerce to the people at large,” Goyal said in his addresses.

Several packaged consumer goods companies have already or are in the process of integrating with the open network for digital commerce (ONDC), according to a November report by Publicis Groupe and Digital India Foundation said. Consumer packaged goods (CPG) industry appeared most advanced when it comes to awareness of ONDC, the report said. 

Meanwhile, emphasizing on the need to build competitiveness in domestic manufacturing sector, Goyal said the government hopes to significantly ramp up focus on quality by bringing in reasonably strict but practical quality standards into place. Focus on quality will help stop the influx of low quality products into India, he said. 

“Towards that end we in the government are working to introduce quality standards in a much bigger way. We have now almost four times the number of quality control orders implemented in the last few years than what we had 10 years ago. In the next 2-3 years, we hope to significantly ramp-up many more products on which we will have reasonably strict, but practical quality standards which will be made compulsory so that Indian manufacturing sector is able to stand against irrational competition, increase scale of production and become more competitive,” he said.

Goyal asked manufacturers, and makers of fast moving consumer goods to work collectively to revive Indian domestic manufacturing at scale, with high quality and at competitive prices. 

“Consumer industry in India, FMCGs and other such products have been a victim of indiscriminate low quality imports, because of which India has suffered, Indians have suffered. It’s going to be a virtuous cycle that we will have to create in the country. Unless we look at massive amounts of investment and focus both on the public sector and the private sector, on creating the necessary building blocks or infrastructure on which the Indian economy will invest, we will not be able to really grow the economy as rapidly as we desire as rapidly as the people of India,” he added.

Meanwhile, Goyal said that India will be an important consumer market and that the fast moving consumer goods sector will be the driver of economic growth.