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Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC) has inked an MoU with the Small Industries Development Bank of India (SIDBI) to onboard small and medium-sized businesses on the ONDC network and thus, increasing their participation in the ecommerce sector.

The MoU was signed between Sivasubramanian Ramann, CMD of SIDBI and T Koshy, managing director and CEO of ONDC. With this, SIDBI and ONDC will collaboratively put efforts to help MSMEs access the open network ecommerce platform proposed by ONDC.

“Through this MoU, we will connect SIDBI’s network with ONDC, which will revolutionize the ecosystem of small industries. This initiative will be a driving force to initiate participation of small industries onto e-commerce on a larger scale and enable their growth,” T Koshy said.

Both ONDC and SIDBI will hold sessions with MSMEs to educate them about ONDC’s network, protocol and MVP definition. Thereafter, the two bodies will conduct accelerator programs to incentivise MSMEs and enable them to go live on the ONDC’s network.

“For this initiative, SIDBI will leverage its strong relationships with all MSME industrial clusters starting from Morbi, Coimbatore and Ludhiana. SIDBI will also facilitate engagement of ONDC with its network of partner grassroots agencies, inter-alia, working for market access to informal enterprises,”  S.Ramann said. 

Ramann added that three entities–Annapurna Finance, Access Livelihoods Group and women’s co-operative group Looms of Ladakh have joined the ONDC network recently. 

It was also informed that SIDBI will develop ecommerce-embedded financing solutions. 

These developments have come at a time when the DPIIT-led ONDC network is widely expanding its roots across diverse sectors of the country. 

At present, various small and large industry players are planning to join the ONDC network. Recently, Reliance Retail-led logistics provider Grab on boarded the ONDC network. Prior to this, Reliance-backed quick commerce startup Dunzo also joined the network. 

Besides, ecommerce giants Flipkart and Amazon are looking to join the ONDC network while Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT) affirmed that it would be joining the ONDC network by the cessation of 2022. 

Set up in December 2021, ONDC is a brainchild of the Department of Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT). With this initiative, the Centre aims to democratise access to digital ecommerce for small retailers in the country. 

In essence, the ONDC will connect buyers and sellers on any consumer-centric platforms spanning across various verticals such as healthcare, food delivery and hotel booking, among others. It will officially launch this month (August) and become accessible for public use in nearly 75-100 towns in India.