E-commerce giants such as Amazon and Flipkart of Walmart would soon face competition from ONDC. It is an idea whose time has come. It will make possible millions of small sellers to participate in the high growth area of digital commerce. A pilot will be launched in May, 2022 in five cities. Some banks such as ICICI, PNB and SBI too have bought stake in the venture. India is the market for global players, as China has them shut out or have made them compete with the Chinese players.

India has an amazing base of smartphone users — 800 million. It is ideal ground to test such technologies.

Nandan Nilkeni has been hired as an advisor to ONDC. He has to his credit two projects — Aadhar and UPI.