ONDC completes four years, expands reach across India's digital commerce ecosystem

New Delhi [India], December 31 : India's digital public infrastructure Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC) has completed four years since its launch, marking a significant milestone in India's efforts to democratise e-commerce and build an open, inclusive digital marketplace.

Highlighting the achievement, Union Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal said ONDC has, over the past four years, transformed India's e-commerce landscape by enabling open participation, fostering innovation, and strengthening trust between buyers and sellers.

He noted that the initiative has played a key role in bringing small shopkeepers and local businesses into the digital economy while widening access for consumers across the country.

"By bringing small shopkeepers into the digital marketplace and widening access for all, it has strengthened trust, benefiting both consumers and sellers," Goyal said in a post on social media platform X.

According to the data shared by the minister, ONDC has enabled more than 350 million transactions to date, reflecting growing adoption across sectors and regions.

Launched in 2021, ONDC was envisioned as an open, interoperable network that breaks platform silos and allows buyers and sellers to transact seamlessly across multiple applications.

Over four years, the network has expanded beyond traditional e-commerce into mobility, logistics, financial services and public infrastructure use cases.

One of the notable initiatives is Bharat Taxi, India's first cooperative taxi service under the Ministry of Cooperation, which is being built on the ONDC framework.

The platform has also onboarded over 12 regional fleet operators pan-India, contributing to a 64 per cent growth in hyperlocal supply.

ONDC's partnership with the National Restaurant Association of India (NRAI) has helped strengthen affordability in food delivery, enabling 15-20 per cent lower consumer pricing by reducing platform commissions and increasing competition.

In the agri-commerce space, ONDC has facilitated India Post-backed packaging, warehousing and last-mile delivery services for Farmer Producer Organisations (FPOs) in Gujarat, improving market access for farmers.

The network has also made inroads into financial inclusion by unlocking Micro-SIPs, onboarding more than 10 first-time mutual fund distributors, with nearly 70 per cent of investors coming from Tier-2 cities, indicating deeper penetration beyond metro markets.

In urban mobility, ONDC has unlocked around 80 per cent of India's metro ticketing inventory, along with intracity bus ticketing across 21 cities, enabling multi-app access to public transport and reducing dependence on single platforms.

India has developed some of the finest digital public goods infrastructure which could change lives the world over, and one of them is Open Network for Digital Commerce. India has taken the path of building public digital infrastructure for serving citizens and UPI, and Jan Dhan, Aadhar, CoWin, ONDC are some of the examples.

Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC) is aimed at promoting open source networks for all to exchange goods and services on the internet, and most importantly it is independent of any specific platform.

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