New Delhi, Apr 24 (KNN) Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT) along with the Department for Promotion of Industry & Internal Trade (DPIIT) will soon set up an e-commerce platform to help the local kirana stores take orders online for essentials and provide last mile contactless delivery.

''With the current crisis, the population in Tier 2 and 3 cities of India that were highly dependent on these Kirana stores for their daily supplies are now facing challenges and to overcome this situation, the national eCommerce market place has been perceived by both DPIIT & CAIT not restricted to present crisis but a permanent eCommerce platform for digitalising existing business of entire trading community of India,'' said CAIT in a statement.

''Apart from DPIIT and CAIT, the other promoters for this marketplace are Startup India, Invest India, All India Consumer Products Distributors Federation and Avana Capital. The e-commerce portal will onboard about seven crore traders of the country,'' the traders' body added.

CAIT also said that manufacturers, distributors, wholesalers, retailers of all verticals of domestic trade and consumers will be the integral part of this e-commerce platform.

The e commerce portal will be eventually enlarged to all items.

''The e-commerce national marketplace has already been conceived and designed and has played a crucial role in ensuring supply of essential goods in different cities under present Covid-19 crisis,'' said CAIT secretary general Praveen Khandelwal.

He said that the e-commerce marketplace will be of the traders, by the traders and for the traders and consumers of the country.