PINAKI MAJUMDAR
Jamshedpur, Jan 7 : The Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT) today shot off a letter to Union Consumer Affairs Minister Piyush Goyal, strongly raising their earlier demand to constitute a regulatory authority for e-commerce and has suggested that the ministry may be designated as the regulatory authority for e-commerce business in India.
Citing figures of the consumer affairs ministry released in March, 2021 which stated that during April 2020 to February 2021 , the complaints related to e-commerce stands at 22 per cent , which was the highest among five segments including banking, telecom, electronic products and consumer durables .
The ministry of consumer affairs is once again conducting one another round of consultations with stakeholders on e-commerce rules under Consumer Protection Act as per the directions of Piyush Goyal who conceded the proposal of the CAIT for a re-consideration on the draft e-commerce.
The CAIT letter stated that such an exercise will certainly give one more opportunity to draft the rules in a most calibrated manner to ensure free, fair and transparent operations of e-markets in India in order to protect the rights of the consumers to get the best product within the parameters of their spending.
CAIT national secretary Suresh Sonthalia said that among the Union government ministries led by Piyush Goyal, Smriti Irani and Hardeep Puri who are engaging stakeholders for consultation on a regular basis in order to ensure “participatory governance” call of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
“The trading community is yet awaiting other concerned ministries to follow the principle of stakeholders consultation,” he said.
