The Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT) has asked that online cab companies Ola and Uber be brought under the ecommerce policy, reports Money Control. The CAIT confirmed to MediaNama that it had raised this issue in the meeting with DPIIT. Last week, prior to the previous deadline for comments on the draft ecommerce policy, the Department of Promotion for Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT) met with industry stakeholders like Amazon, Snapdeal, MakeMyTrip, UrbanClap, Ola, Uber, Microsoft, Netflix, AIOVA, Vyapari Mandal etc who asked for a deadline extension. The deadline has now been extended to the end of this month. Note that this will not be the CAIT’s first time asking for Ola and Uber’s regulation. In January, the association told the Financial Express that it would “challenge Ola and Uber for the kind of monopoly they have maintained in the market and are allowed to charge dynamic fair.” Then, the CAIT also wanted Grofers, Swiggy and Zomato etc to be regulated because of their cashbacks and discounts, according to the FE report. The CAIT added that it would launch a nationwide agitation if the “government makes any change or amendment in the policy to the advantage of global e-commerce players” and seek the PM’s intervention. In fact, then, it said that a PwC report - stating that FDI restrictions in the ecommerce industry will reduce online sales by $46 billion by 2022 - was peddling the agenda of ecommerce companies since the data in the report was supplied by these…
