Conformity assessment procedures will be place in spot to confirm that goods and services sold on e-commerce platforms meet essential requirements and technical regulations, according to the draft e-commerce policy.
The policy, which is beneath discussion, also stated that actions and factors which can’t be completed by the on the internet platform entities “can also not be done” by any of its associates and connected parties.
Government may possibly, from time to time, notify parties which fall in the definition of associates and connected parties, it stated.
“Conformity assessment procedures will be put in place in order to verify that goods and services sold, on e-commerce platforms, meet required standards and technical regulations, as prescribed by sector specific regulations/rules,” the draft stated.
These procedures are connected to testing, verification and certification of goods and services, amongst other individuals.
It also stated that a lengthy-run endeavour will be to convert GeM (Government e-marketplace) into a marketplace exactly where “ordinary consumers” could procure, escalating the efficiency in the Indian economy.
Currently, only the government departments and agencies are permitted to procure goods and services from the GeM portal.
According to the draft policy, an e-commerce operator operating in marketplace or hybrid mode will have to handle its partnership with sellers on its platform in an agnostic manner and with no getting partial to any of its sellers.
It has talked about places like definition of e-commerce, code of conduct, creation of conducive atmosphere, enhancing exports, monitoring, meeting regulatory challenges of the sector, handling of information, no cost and informed selection of buyers, fair competitors, anti-counterfeit and anti-piracy.
Last week an inter-ministerial meeting chaired by officials of Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal trade (DPIIT) had discussed this draft.
The draft has defined e-commerce as the small business activities of sale, advertising and marketing, distribution of goods or provision of services via the Internet or other details networks and it would be equally applicable to entities with foreign and domestic investments.
“An e-commerce operator shall mean any entity that is engaged in the operational activities of selling goods or providing service through the internet and other information network, including e-commerce platform operators, operators on platform and e-commerce operators selling goods or providing service via their self-built website or other web service,” it added.
Further it has stated that the government will work towards streamlining of regulatory processes to ease the burden of compliance for activities connected to e-commerce.
The government would endeavour to bring offline sellers on the internet and provide help for aiding computerization, digital payment enablement and on-boarding of these sellers that at present do not have such facilities.
“Back-end channel integration and hyper-local models are important ways in which growth of the sector can be inclusive and will be encouraged, so as to integrate advantages of the offline retail trade with those of online sale,” it stated.
To market exports via the e-commerce medium, the draft has stated that measures will be taken to provide on the internet lending, credit rating, finance, and transportation help to SMEs via private and public sector banks.
The digital integration of many interfaces such as Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs (CBIC), Department of Posts (DoP), Directorate General of Foreign Trade (DGFT) and Goods and Service Tax Network (GSTN) for facilitating e-commerce exports shall be undertaken, it added.