Recipe For Disaster If ONDC Protocol Doesn't Evolve To Onboard More Companies: DPIIT Official

The government on Wednesday confirmed that ONDC 2.0, the next phase of India's open commerce network, will involve a revamp of key protocols to make it easier for more businesses to join, following feedback from network participants.

Sanjiv, Joint Secretary with the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT), which is a part of the Commerce Ministry, said at an event that the platform must evolve continuously or risk irrelevance. "If there's no change in protocol with evolving circumstances, it's a recipe for disaster."

Acknowledging the teething issues faced in the early rollout, he likened ONDC's journey to raising a child. "When a kid is small, there are issues, but we're working on them."

The ONDC team is now actively engaging with network participants (NPs), promising customised solutions to attract and retain them. "Every network participant wants something specific. Unless we do that, they won't come. They'll be genuinely involved only if we solve their problems," he said, adding that under newly appointed CEO Vibhor Jain, ONDC should reach the heights of UPI, which scaled massively without the need for promotional spending.

On concerns from companies about being on a shared platform, DPIIT maintained that aggregation brings synergy, not conflict. "The pool is large enough. Players shouldn't worry about co-existing on the same network."

The comments come in the backdrop of the hesitation shown by e-commerce players such as Amazon, Flipkart, Zomato and Swiggy. Despite repeated calls by the government, these tech giants have stayed mum on joining ONDC via their main apps.

Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal too has earlier stated that the government doesn't fully support the idea of companies creating their own open network for digital commerce-specific platforms.

"Monolithic tech platforms won't be able to offer opportunities like a network can. Instead of a siloed effort where a winner takes all, ONDC is for greater discoverability, better pricing, quality, and similar things for a seller, so a seller would be able to find more buyers," Goyal had said in 2023.