Ease of Doing Business for MSMEs: Kerala, in its pursuit to boost the Micro Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) in the state, will take help of the Union Government’s Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC) to ensure they get a level playing field with e-commerce majors like Amazon and Flipkart, according to a report by The New Indian Express (TNIE). ONDC is being developed to enable small merchants and grocery stores across the country to access digital technology and get on-par with e-commerce players.
ONDC, which is being hailed as the UPI of e-commerce, has come at a time when the state government is developing its own e-commerce platform for Kerala-based MSME sector, said Industries Minister P Rajeeve, TNIE reported. He added that workshops and programmes are being held to make stakeholders aware of ONDC.
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“We are exploring how our e-commerce platform can be brought under ONDC so that our MSME sector does not miss out on the opportunity,” the minister said.
ONDC in a recent Facebook post, after its workshop in Thiruvananthapuram stated that Kerala has taken a big leap forward in digital commerce with ONDC.
It highlighted how retailers in the state could be a part of a democratised digital market.
Further, the post stated that ONDC network will act as a facilitator to get players on a par in the digital e-commerce space.The state is expected to bring one lakh MSMEs across all sectors under this digital initiative in the next one year, the report said.
“ONDC is turbo-charging the Kerala e-commerce landscape to serve one and all,” the Facebook post highlighted.
The experts said for the network to succeed at the national level, companies will have to create a sub-network of buyer and seller apps as well as last-mile delivery mechanisms.
ONDC is currently working with several software companies including Microsoft, which has joined hands with a Bangalore-based start-up eSamudaay, for the project.
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Anup Pani, co-founder, eSamudaay said he is looking for Kerala government’s support to promote its ready-to-use toolkit to digitise the merchants.
“The idea is to create local digital entrepreneurs who can then help local merchants digitise and use communication tools to get buyers on board and then provide delivery as a service to the local network,” Pai said, adding that merely building seller-side apps would not do the trick, reported TNIE.