CAIT hails announcement of extension of last date for submission of objections to March 31

New Delhi, Mar 9 (KNN) Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT) has hailed the announcement of extension of last date for submission of objections to March 31 and said that it will enable the stakeholders to submit their views in a more pragmatic manner.

The Department of Promotion for Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT) convened a meeting of stakeholders for holding discussion on draft of e Commerce Policy.

The meeting was attended by about 18 prominent stakeholders including the Confederation of All India Traders. The meeting was chaired by Additional Secretary, Shailendra Singh and was attended by various other senior officials of the Department.

CAIT Secretary General Praveen Khandelwal stressed on the need of formation of a Regulatory Authority to regulate e com business. The COD in e Commerce should be stopped and all payments should be made only through digital means. It will have storage of correct data. The domestic e Commerce players should invariably be brought under e Commerce Policy. Service providers like OLA & UBER should be brought under the policy.

Speakers at the meeting opined that e Commerce Policy should have enough provisions to create an even level playing field and fair competition. Efforts should be made to encourage even the smallest entity or traders to opt e commerce as another forum of business.

Payment system in e Commerce should be simple and the entire eco system of digital payments should be brought under ambit of e Commerce Policy, they said.

They added that the policy should be aimed to remove all ambiguities and disparities in e commerce business.

The policy has more focus on data localization which is a good step but other basic fundamentals like parameters of e Commerce, definition of stakeholders etc needs to be clarified. What could be the exact role of e Commerce players also needs to be defined in clear terms to remove any ambiguity.

 Every sort of business doing through electronic method should be a part of the policy. Speakers also opined that search engines should also be subject to scanner.  (KNN/JM)