The lobby group to battle against global ecommerce players, Indiatech.org which is said to be led by Flipkart’s co-founder Sachin Bansal, has onboarded former Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officer and economist Gyanendra Badgaiyan as the CEO of the organisation, reports The Economic Times. The publication also reports that Indiatech.org is expected to hire more people once Badgaiyan formally comes onboard with the lobby group.
Badgaiyan most recently headed National Centre for Good Governance (NCCG), a government think tank for governance & policy reforms, working across administrative, social, financial and political areas. He has earlier worked as Chief Economist at UNDP and Research Fellow at UN University, and as an IAS, he served in various policy and field level positions including Finance Secretary and Collector. Also taught at LBSNAA, Mussoorie as Professor, Economics. Badgaiyan has studied Economics at Delhi School of Economics and Cambridge University and obtained PhD from Princeton University.
Last month, homegrown ecommerce and Internet companies such as Flipkart, Ola, MakeMyTrip, Quikr, and Hike Messenger reportedly grouped together to launch industry body – Indiatech.org – to lobby or battle against ‘deep pocketed’ global competitors for ‘fair market’ in the country. Indiatech.org was reported to push government to make policies favoring domestic startups as the club of these Indian startup wants local companies to dominate in the country. The group believes that if India’s local firms do not succeed, the country is likely lose $10 billion of foreign direct investment and over $1 billion of tax revenues per year.
Why?
Some of these e-commerce companies or internet platforms are struggling to fight competition from global players. For instance, Softbank-backed Flipkart is having a tough fight against US giant Amazon. In taxi space, Ola is running behind by global major Uber. In terms of communication, Facebook-owned WhatsApp is dominating globally when it comes to P2P communication segment, and home grown players like Hike Messenger are having tough time.
Regulator for e-commerce players
The new-age industry of ecommerce platforms or Internet firms needs a regulator for various purposes. For this, The All India Online Vendors Association (AIOVA) demanded the government in June this year, to institute a regulator for the e-commerce sector. Their demands included a grievance cell for online sellers similar to a consumer court, a competitive market that isn’t marred by monopoly or cartelisation of any kind, and a set of accounting and auditing standards.
