National E-Commerce Policy

Electronic commerce and data are emerging as key enablers and critical determinants of India’s growth and economic development. It provides an incredible opportunity for India to enable 70 million medium and small Indian businesses to become the bedrock of India’s digital economy. Consumer protection, data privacy and maintenance of a level-playing field are some of the crucial issues.

• The government in February 2019 has prepared a draft of national e-commerce policy to enable the domestic industry to benefit from the advantages created by electronic commerce and facilitate holistic growth of the sector along with existing policies of Make in India and Digital India. The National e-Commerce Policy is aimed to address concerns which go beyond the sale and purchase of products by electronic means.
• It provide a basis for unlocking productivity, generating new-age jobs, protecting critical personal information, enhancing consumer awareness and facilitating onboarding of domestic producers, manufacturers, traders and retailers.

Key Features

• Proposed setting up a legal and technological framework for restrictions on cross-border data flow and also laid out conditions for businesses regarding collection or processing of sensitive data locally and storing it abroad.
• An inter-ministerial panel under Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade - DPIIT would be formed to address stakeholder grievances on FDI and draft e-commerce policy.
• Takes into account interests of all stakeholders, be they investors, manufacturers, MSMEs, traders, retailers, startups and consumers.
• With an aim to develop capacities of the domestic industry, the Policy takes forward the core components of the Digital India initiative:

1. the development of secure and stable digital infrastructure;
2. delivering Government services digitally; and
3. universal digital literacy.

• Provides for integrating Customs, RBI and India Post systems to improve tracking of imports through e-Commerce. All e-Commerce websites and applications available for downloading in India must have a registered business entity in India as the importer on record or the entity through which all sales in India are transacted.
• E-Commerce entities are required to publicly share all relevant details of sellers who make their products available on websites/platforms of these entities.