Reiterating its focus on digital public infrastructure, India on Friday submitted a paper in the World Trade Organisation on the subject, seeking to initiate a discussion before deliberating a final agreement.

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The paper will be discussed in WTO's General council meeting slated to be held on February 21.

Stressing on the need for discussions at the WTO council to promote e-commerce, the Commerce Ministry said that the digital public infrastructure presents an alternate paradigm on the gap between developed and developing countries, adding that many nations need not duplicate such infrastructure if interoperability gets extensively employed as a building block for digital economy.

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The ministry stressed on the need for threadbare discussion on this subject along with consumer protection, describing the e-commerce sector as a dynamic sector with evolving legal regimes.

India, submitted a paper on consumer protection in December last year. The Commerce Ministry said that India's paper on consumer protection elicited a good response from various countries, including China, when it was discussed at the WTO. The ministry further said that challenges pertaining to misleading advertisements, online payment security, unfair terms and data protection still persist in the domain of consumer protection.

With all countries yet to adopt a similar framework for consumer protection, the government is of the view that payment snags and delivery issues need to be ironed out for various jurisdictions as digital sellers are spread across the world.

India is ready to assist other nations which can't develop similar APIs for systems unique to India, like the UPI, ONDC and UIDAI, the ministry added.

While 21,000 standards have been set by the BIS, DPIIT is working on 315 standards and aims to bring a national framework for quality control to ensure uniformity in standards. Quality Control Orders (QCOs) for the same will be uploaded on WTO website to give 60 days to WTO member nations to comply with Indian quality standards. As part of ensuring quality framework, the Quality Council of India has also said that product ratings on ONDC will be decided by users.

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(Edited by : Anushka Sharma)