A new draft ecommerce policy was circulated in inter-ministerial meeting on Saturday, with a focus on equal treatment to sellers and prevention of market dominance by a few players, a copy of which CNBC-TV18 has seen. This is the third such draft of the proposed policy for the sector that has been circulated since 2019.

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Importantly, the new draft does not mention an ecommerce regulator as was highlighted in the previous draft that was circulated in July 2020. Instead, it refers to a Standing Group of Secretaries on e-commerce (SGoS) that will work on administering the ecommerce policy.

Also, while the previous two drafts had detailed points around data protection, the new draft policy only refers to upcoming regulations for personal, non-personal data.

Another important highlight is that for players with FDI. The FDI policy shall prevail in case of inconsistencies between the two policies.

Here are the key points from new draft ecommerce policy:

Monitoring of ecommerce players

> Standing Group of Secretaries on ecommerce (SGoS) shall give recommendations to address policy challenges.

> SGoS will continue to be important in administering the ecommerce policy.

> Registration with an authority identified by the government shall be mandatory.

> Government shall collect information from ecommerce platforms to aid it in making necessary decisions.

FDI policy to prevail over e-commerce policy

> Ecommerce entities having foreign investment shall comply with FDI policy.

> FDI policy shall prevail in case of inconsistencies between the two policies.

> No preferential treatment to few sellers.

> Ecommerce operators must ensure equal treatment of all sellers/vendors

registered on their platforms and not adopt algorithms which result in

prioritising.

> An ecommerce operator shall manage its relationship with sellers on its platform in an agnostic manner without being partial to any of its sellers.

> An ecommerce operator shall ensure that information collected through platform is not used to obtain market advantage against sellers on its own platform.

> All ecommerce operators shall ensure that algorithms used, are not biased and that no discrimination due to digitally induced biases is prevalent.

On online discounts

> Ecommerce operators must ensure to bring out clear and transparent policies on discounts, including the basis of discount rates funded by platforms for different products/suppliers and implications of participation/non-participation in discount schemes.

On market dominance

> The government will aim to ensure that there are more service providers available, and that network effects do not lead to creation of digital monopolies misusing their dominant market position.

On country of origin

> Consumers have a right to be made aware of all relevant details about the goods and services offered for sale including country of origin, value addition in India.

On data protection

> The government has cited the upcoming regulations for personal and nonpersonal data.

> Says government will lay down principles, safeguards on use of data, cross-border data flow.

Exports

> India Post will develop a specialised, low cost, and trackable solution targeted at e-commerce exporters for small products, with committed timelines for express delivery.

> Foreign post offices will be strengthened and their numbers will be increased, so that they may act as delivery hubs, across regions.

> Digital integration of Central Board of Indirect Taxes & Customs (CBIC), Department of Posts (DoP), Directorate General of Foreign Trade (DGFT) and Goods and Service Tax Network (GSTN) for facilitating e-commerce exports shall be undertaken.

On counterfeit and policy

> A body of industry stakeholders and identified trusted parties (as voluntarily

identified by ecommerce entities) will be created that shall identify rogue e

commerce entities. Rogue ecommerce entities would refer to those ecommerce entities that host predominantly pirated content.

> For products fulfilled end-to-end by the ecommerce entity, the liability for

counterfeit product shall be jointly and severally of the e-commerce entity

and the seller.

(Edited by : Jomy)

First Published:Mar 13, 2021 7:37 PM IST