It's no more nine-to-five! NITI Aayog stands robust to deal all challenges for changing competition landscape in India

New Delhi, August 30: "The usage of data by people in e-commerce needs a careful oversight as when combined with modern technology, it gives unprecedented market power to the platforms which can be used for benefits of consumers as much as it can be used for causing harm to them", said Dr Rajiv Kumar of NITI Aayog on Friday at the workshop on ‘E-commerce: Changing Competition Landscape in India’, organised by Competition Commission of India CCI.

 

"In such a scenario, it becomes imperative for CCI and other regulators to work closely with the industry in order to be prepared to deal with challenges", he said advocating the need for liberal FDI regime in e-commerce.

 

 

Commemorating CCI for carrying out the e-commerce market study and underscoring the need for research-based policymaking for enabling evidence based regulation, he stated that presently India is the ninth-largest e-commerce economy with the potential to reach the number two position as we move ahead with penetration of Internet in the rural areas.

 

Further addressing e-commerce to be the sunrise sector, he emphasized the role of policymakers and regulators in facilitating the e-commerce explosion in a manner that is beneficial to the buyers, sellers and consumers. He touched upon how e-commerce benefited various stakeholders such as the logistics industry, farmers, and women entrepreneurs.

 

He also emphasized that with the growth in GDP, there exists ample space for both online and offline retail to co-exist. Commenting on the strategies adopted by conglomerate e-commerce platforms, he stressed that CCI has a greater role to ensure that their market power do not lead to monopoly situation.

 

The day-long workshop was conducted by CCI in pursuance of its larger mandate of protecting and promoting competition and fair play in markets, and as a part of its market study launched in April 2019 for better understanding of the e-commerce ecosystems in India, business practices of online platforms and other market participants that avail the platforms’ intermediation services and their implications on competition.

 

The interim observations emanating from the e-commerce study by CCI were presented in the inaugural session capturing the key trends that have emerged to guide meaningful deliberations in the ensuing sessions. The broad issues of platform neutrality, platform to business terms and discount structures in the online ecosystems of product retail, hotel booking and food ordering and delivery were touched upon in the presentation.