Send Concerns On Draft E-comm Policy Within 10 Days: Goyal

The government has asked e-commerce companies to send their concerns with regard to the draft e-commerce policy to the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade in writing within 10 days.

This was after industry representatives raised concerns about the policy not being “adequately consultative”.

Piyush Goyal Goyal, Minister of Commerce and Industry, and Railways on Monday met e-commerce and tech industry representatives in which the industry representatives also put forth their concerns related to RBI data storage requirements and processing-related guidelines issued by the RBI.

The meeting was also attended by the Secretary- DPIIT, Secretary - Department of Commerce; Secretary- Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY), and the Deputy Governor of RBI.

In the meeting, Ajay Prakash Sawhney, Secretary, MeitY has ensured the e-commerce industry representatives that the Data Protection Bill will reflect all consultations that took place with the industry during the formulation of the Bill. Meanwhile, the Competition Commission of India (CCI) is conducting a study on e-commerce in India to look at market trends with a focus on emerging distribution methods and strategies in response to e-commerce and will seek to understand business practices and contractual provisions in e-commerce, their underlying rationale and implications for competition.

It also aims to identify impediments to competition, if any, relating to e-commerce and also seeks to ascertain enforcement and advocacy priorities for the CCI in e-commerce.

The preliminary findings will be presented in August-end, a government release said. All relevant stakeholders will be invited to present their views on identified issues. The final report is expected to be published in the third quarter of 2019-20.