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ONDC To Be Next UPI Moment, To Give Startups New Opportunities To Grow In India: Piyush Goyal
Swarajya Staff
Jan 21, 2022, 04:18 PM | Updated 04:21 PM IST
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Union Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal on Friday (21 January) said that ONDC (Open Network for Digital Commerce) will be the next UPI (Unified Payments Interface) of India.
While releasing the NASSCOM Tech Start-up Report 2022, Goyal said Goyal said Startup India started a revolution six years ago and today ‘Startup’ has become a common household term.
Indian Startups are fast becoming the champions of India Inc’s growth story, he added.
"We have added 43 unicorns in 45 weeks, since the start of ‘Azadi ka Amrit Mahotsav’ on 12 March 2021. Let us aim for atleast 75 unicorns in this 75 week period to 75th Anniversary of Independence,” he said, according to a Commerce Ministry release.
He said the new India is today being led by new troika of Innovation, Technology and Entrepreneurship (ITE), which in a way has grown further from the original ICE (Information, Communication and Entertainment).
Goyal further said that India’s unique digital infrastructure - Aadhaar, Digilocker, Fastag, Cowin, UPI have enabled access and affordability.
“The Cowin portal showed the world that India could run world’s largest vaccination programme efficiently and effectively, with complete mapping and monitoring done digitally," he said.
"UPI has helped new age technologies in reaching the common man at affordable prices,” said Goyal.
"I also believe that the next UPI moment can be the ONDC (Open Network For Digital Commerce) which will help new-age technology in taking access to the common man at affordable cost and also giving our startups new opportunities to grow in India," the minister said.
Goyal added that the ONDC, developed in India, will probably be the first-of-its-kind network or platform in the world.
He added that the ONDC will "enable interoperability between e-commerce companies and provide equal opportunity to small and large players opportunity to reach to the common man in the nook and corner of the country".
ONDC, according to the Commerce Ministry, is a world-first effort that aspires to democratise digital commerce by pushing it away from a platform-centric approach and toward an open-network model.
Also Read: Closer Look: Why ONDC Can Be For E-Commerce What UPI Is To Digital Payments
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