The Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT) has raised strong objections to the March 19 meeting of the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT) with India-based representatives of e-commerce majors under the banner of industry chambers, the PTI reported.
CAIT does not have any problem with DPIIT meeting e-commerce companies under their own banner, but objects to them representing “holy” industry banners like Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), National Association of Software and Service Companies (NASSCOM), Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India (Assocham), PHD Chamber of Commerce and Industry (PHDCCI), and Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce & Industry (FICCI), the report states.
The objection comes after the March 19 meeting on issues regarding FDI in e-commerce for which the Commerce and Industry Ministry asked one representative from each association to make a submission. An Amazon official represented FICCI, which led to CAIT’s objection. FICCI later stated that the official’s views only captured one section of its e-commerce members.
CAIT called this “akin to falling for wolves in sheep’s clothing.”
Will burn holi of Amazon and Flipkart: CAIT
CAIT further demanded the government plug all the loopholes in Press Note 2 of the FDI policy. Praveen Khandelwal, CAIT Secretary-General, announced that 40,000 trade associations across the country will observe March 25 as ”E-commerce Democracy Day”. Following this, on March 28, traders will burn Holi of Amazon and Flipkart at over 1000 places.
CAIT said these protests are to demonstrate their anger and resentment towards foreign-funded e-commerce giants who are monopolizing e-commerce in India through “subterfuge” companies like Cloudtail.
Last week, the government proposed the Draft E-Commerce Policy 2021, which mandates equal treatment of all sellers. The timelines of its rollout are not yet clear.
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