The Central Government proposes to operationalise the Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC) as a private sector-led, non-profit company to bring focus on ethical and responsible behaviour while providing for trust, rigorous norms of governance, accountability, and transparency.

The ONDC is expected to provide a start-up mindset for a population scale implementation, enabled by a management with a futuristic vision, leadership with a deep understanding of commerce, comfort with cutting-edge technology, and missionary outlook to drive change.

The role of the entity would be to develop the network by adopting and building enabling technology and encouraging wide-scale voluntary participation by eco-system players. It would ensure network discipline by establishing a code of conduct and rules of network based on principles of consumer protection, fair trade, and regulatory conformity.

The entity will also provide foundational services for managing the network like digital infrastructure, common registry, certification of participants and certifying agencies, grievance redressal, etc.

It will develop and operate reference applications for buyers, sellers and gateway for market activation and priming the network along with partner entities. It will also support SMEs in their digital transformation by developing readymade tools to help existing software applications quickly adapt to the network.

Union Minister of Commerce and Industry Piyush Goyal reviewed the progress on ONDC initiative of the DPIIT on Tuesday.

Expressing satisfaction with the progress made and desired to compress timelines for making this network a reality soon, he directed that wide participation from ecosystem should be ensured.