ONDC to boost hyper-local e-commerce: Infosys chairman

By

Isabelle Crossley

Published
Apr 6, 2023

The Government of India is continuing to expand its Open Network for Digital Commerce framework. At a PhonePe event on Tuesday, Infosys’ chairman and co-founder Nandan Nilekani shared his confidence that ONDC will be a boon to hyper-local e-commerce.

“Today, India achieved financial inclusion in about seven to eight years with homegrown technologies like Aadhaar, UPI, QR code and more,” said Nilekani at a PhonePe launch event, Indo-Asian News Service reported. “The next step is to connect millions of small retailers to mainstream e-commerce with ONDC to create a robust digital public infrastructure.”
 
Connecting more micro, small, and medium enterprises to e-commerce, across both geographies and industries, will enable them to expand their customer bases beyond their immediate localities. This gives such businesses significant potential for growth and will give shoppers a wider choice of products. 

ONDC is designed to present available products from a wide range of e-commerce platforms together to enable shoppers to choose without the market being monopolised by big businesses. The framework will open up e-commerce to everyone in India, according to Nilekani, and will bring millions of small-scale entrepreneurs online. 
 
ONDC was launched in December, 2021 by the government’s Department for the Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade. The platform is based on blockchain and the government is piloting the platform in numerous areas in India.