India has decided to put the much-awaited e-commerce policy, which seeks to set up a regulator for the sector, on hold for now in view of the Covid-19 pandemic and economic challenges. Draft of the policy was discussed by a group of secretaries after which a call was taken to not pursue it for some time.
“We have redrafted the policy and presented it to the group of secretaries. However, the environment is not congenial now and officers are busy in Covid-19-related work,” said an official in the knowledge of the details.
The Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT) has redrafted the policy with the aim to promote ecommerce while protecting vulnerable sections such as kiranas and also connect the offline stores with the online ones.
The policy has also pitched the idea of a regulator through an Act of parliament. In case an ‘ecommerce regulator’ is not put in place, a ‘data regulator’ would regulate the sector.
“The policy is not about regimenting e-commerce but promoting Indian ecommerce especially exports while protecting the vulnerable sections. We are focused on enabling,” the official added.
The department had in February last year released a draft national e-commerce policy, proposing to set up a legal and technological framework to restrict cross-border data flow and conditions to collect or process sensitive data locally and storing it abroad. It was criticised by global ecommerce and technology gian ts since it contained a chapter on data, including provisions on localisation of data, which overlapped with the personal data protection bill.
In its latest report on trade barriers, the US has marked a slew of issues in India’s digital trade including those proposed in the draft ecommerce policy, such as data localisation requirements, restrictions on cross-border data flows, expanded grounds for forced transfer of intellectual property and proprietary source code, and preferential treatment for domestic digital products. Washington said it “strongly encourages India to reconsider this draft policy”.
The previous draft policy proposed granting ‘infrastructure status’ to data storage services such as data centres, server firms, towers, tower stations, equipment, optical wires, signal transceivers and antennae as it would create jobs.
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