E-commerce policy in six months; to address the privacy of data and tax issues
On the issue of a possible regulator of the sector, the Minister of Trade said that it would depend on whether the policy needed legislative requirements, new regulations or laws already in place. The Government has announced that an e-commerce policy framework will be developed within the next six months.
The comprehensive policy is expected to focus on all aspects of e-commerce and consumers. It will include the privacy of data and taxes, regardless of a range of technical aspects such as technology transfer, server localization, and communication issues.
Trade Minister Rita Teaotia said on Tuesday that a large number of ministries, key players in the industry and a number of regulators, including India’s Competition Commission and the Telecommunications Regulatory Authority of India, would participate in policy formulation. The Thought Committee in charge of policy formulation held its first meeting on Tuesday.
On the issue of a possible regulator of the sector, Tiotia said it would depend on whether the policy needed legislative requirements, new regulations or laws already in place. A task force will now be formed and is expected to make recommendations to e-commerce. Tank within five months. On the other hand, the Research Center will temporarily have a month to finish the framework.
Flipkart, Amazon, Paytm, etc
Major e-commerce companies such as Flipkart, Paytm’s main portfolio, and the MakeMyTrip service provider came out at full strength on Tuesday at a stakeholder consultation meeting. Apart from the privacy of the data, most companies were frank about the taxes and claims that were filed against them by mask and mortar retailers on the issue of excessive discounts being offered.
The debate was quite clear that the discount and the fact that stocks were not allowed, either directly or indirectly, were not allowed by online markets, but there is obviously a lot of concern about whether this is being implemented effectively or No, and if not, what will be done about it.
The e-commerce policy may not go hand in hand with India’s arguments about e-commerce in the World Trade Organization (WTO), a senior Commerce Ministry official said. Over the past two years, developed countries have consistently pushed forward a proposed set of global e-commerce rules. India argued that the move would lead to the exclusion of discussions on food security and other development-related issues of concern to developing countries.
However, the domestic e-commerce industry has also remained cool for the proposal, fearing that the new rules could provide an excuse to enter the unfair duty market to foreign companies.
Since this is an agenda driven by the World Trade Organization, our proposal was that access to data, platforms, and markets in India must be reciprocal. The Indian open market, in some way, Big for global companies, but the same may not be true for local companies.