Traders body slams delay in national e-commerce policy

The much talked about national e-commerce policy has yet to be rolled out officially and this has come under severe criticism by traders body CAIT. The Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT) has reportedly flagged the "inordinate delay" in the official release of a national e-commerce policy and consumer protection rules, saying the delay in their implementation has provided an opportunity to certain foreign e-commerce players to damage domestic retail trade.

CAIT has sent a written communication in this regard to Minister for Commerce and Industry, Consumer Affairs, Food & Public Distribution and Textiles, Piyush Goyal on Tuesday.

In a statement on Wednesday, the traders' body reportedly expressed "utter dismay over inordinate delay in rolling out of e-commerce policy and rules under Consumer Protection Act" and equated it to a "slow poison situation" for the country's business community.

A senior government official had recently said that the proposed National E-commerce Policy being formulated by the Commerce and Industry ministry was in the final stages and that no new draft policy would be issued now for seeking views of stakeholders.

The 2019 of the policy draft proposed to address six broad and key areas of the e-commerce ecosystem -- data, infrastructure development, e-commerce marketplaces, regulatory issues, stimulating domestic digital economy and export promotion through e-commerce.

The policy draft had talked about a framework for restrictions on cross-border data flow; collection or processing of sensitive data locally and storing it abroad; among other things.

In the letter to Goyal, CAIT Secretary General Praveen Khandelwal has been quoted as saying that the delay in the implementation of ecommerce policy "has caused irreparable loss to the small and medium retail traders and has resulted in deep loss of turnover in their business and thousands of retail traders have been forced to close down their businesses in addition to wreaking havoc in the lives of all those who are directly and indirectly dependent on India's retail and e-commerce industry".