More Reliance Industries-backed firms are likely to join the government’s e-commerce platform, Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC), T Koshy, chief executive officer (CEO), ONDC, told a TV channel on Thursday.

Further, e-commerce giant Amazon has also announced it will join the platform, but has not started integrating with ONDC yet. The same is the case with Flipkart, where eKart — its logistics arm — has already completed integration, Koshy added.

“It’s not only a good intention but also a compulsion that will come to them (the existing marketplaces) to be a part of the ONDC story because of the way their businesses will involve. Reliance’s logistics arm (Dunzo) was the first one to come in (to the ONDC) and they also have expressed their willingness and interest to be a part of this network in the near future,” Koshy said.

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ONDC went live (beta stage) in 16 PIN codes in Bengaluru on September 30 and has already expanded to 28 PIN codes in the city, as on Thursday. While customers can order only groceries and food from restaurants from the ones who have partnered with ONDC, Koshy said more categories like fashion, home decor and electronic goods will be added soon.

The number of orders on ONDC, too, has been rising steadily. On the first day, there were 161 orders placed through buyer apps like Paytm (88), Spicemoney (15) and Mystore (15), and that number has jumped fourfold. On Thursday, ONDC received 604 orders through Paytm (360), Spicemoney (66) and Mystore (82), according to data sourced from the platform.

So far, only the two logistics players — LoadShare and Dunzo — were operative, but on Thursday, Blowhorn, too, announced it will complete orders on the network.

Santosh Desai, co-founder, Blowhorn, told FE: “Blowhorn specialises in same-day deliveries with dominance in intra-city operations, where a bulk of the orders are delivered in about four hours.”

On ONDC, the average delivery fees has hovered around Rs 40, but Desai said Blowhorn’s charges are about 30-40% higher than that and added that customers are okay paying extra as long as their orders are fulfilled on time.