New Delhi, Jun 24 (KNN) After Modi government made it mandatory to mention 'Country of Origin' for all sellers on Government e-Marketplace (GeM) platform, now Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT) has urged Piyush Goyal, Minister for Commerce and Industry to apply the same rule on e-commerce portals.

The traders' body has written a letter to Piyush Goyal urging him to make it mandatory to display the Country of Origin of all products on E-Commerce portals as well.

''Such provision should also be applicable on all e-commerce portals operating in the Country. Since the Government has begun the step with itself,  it’s a perfect reflection of “Charity begins at Home” and the Ministry of Commerce should immediately issue a notification to make it mandatory for all e commerce portals operating their activities in India,'' said CAIT National President B C Bhartia & Secretary General Praveen Khandelwal.

The CAIT raised this demand on June 15th to the Commerce Minister in the wake of the fact that mostly all e-commerce companies are selling Chinese goods in large percentages on their portals and in absence of Country of Origin provision, the customers are unaware about the origin of the country which certainly influences the choice of the Consumers.

Both Bhartia & Khandelwal said that another important step which the government has taken to enable a provision for indication of the percentage of local content in products.

''The Government has also enabled a Make in India filter on Gem portal which will facilitate the buyers to choose or buy only those products that meet the minimum 50% local content criteria,'' they added.

The duo stated that now it is the time for the e-commerce portals to include this provision in their respective portals to let the customers know as to which Country's product they are buying.

''They further said that since other e-commerce portals are working under the Business to Consumers (B2C) concept, this provision is more required in such e-commerce portals so that the consumers are not deceived,'' they said.

 Recently, Condemning China's military aggression along the Line of Actual Control in Eastern Ladakh, the CAIT had called for a boycott of Chinese goods, listing 450 imported items. The development comes as the India-China faceoff in Galwan Valley in Ladakh turned violent on last Monday.

The CAIT said that the objective is to reduce import of Chinese finished goods by USD 13 billion or about Rs 1 lakh crore by December 2021. At present, India imports about Rs 5.25 lakh crore, i.e. USD 70 billion, worth of goods annually from China.