The three-hour long meeting touched upon a series of hot-button topics including the need to regulate data usage and to define the market for emerging internet businesses amid the backdrop of upcoming regulations for the sector, according to sources. They said Paytm’s founder Vijay Shekhar Sharma, Oyo’s founder Ritesh Agarwal, Flipkart group CEO Kalyan Krishnamurthy and MakeMyTrip cofounder Deep Kalra were among those present at the meeting that was convened to help the government understand issues surrounding further growth of the Indian digital and ecommerce industries.
“ The parliamentarians were getting the views of the industry on these subjects,” said one of the people cited above.
A similar meeting between the parliamentary committee on finance and international technology firms including Amazon, Google, Meta, Twitter is expected to take place next week, sources directly aware of developments said.
Emails sent to Flipkart, Paytm, Ola, Makemytrip and Oyo Hotels and Homes did not elicit any response till press time Thursday.
Startup leaders shared their misgivings against Big Tech firms like Google and its Playstore billing policy under which platforms have to pay a 30% fee to the American major for in-app purchases. The implementation of the policy in India has been deferred to October 31, 2022 following continuous backlash from app developers.
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ET reported on March 31 that the charges levelled at Google’s contentious payment billing system for Play Store developers has found it ‘unfair and discriminatory’, as per people aware of the matter. Further hearings on the findings of the probe –tabled earlier this month—are to begin shortly.
Digital regulations
Earlier in May, Sinha had chaired a meeting with representatives from sectors like hospitality, restaurants, trader associations, and startups among others. The committee is expected to prepare a report based on these interactions.
According to people present at Thursday’s discussion, domestic technology firms reiterated that overall digital penetration in ecommerce across segments is still in its early stages compared to the total offline retail market.
“There was discussion on the ride-hailing and the food delivery space–especially on the impact of the food-delivery platforms on restaurants..,” said one person on the condition of anonymity.
“ These companies ( internet firms) maintained that they are compliant with regulations and are enabling offline businesses to grow further digitally,” the person added.
A second source who attended the meeting said the focus was to “start a dialogue between the stakeholders and lawmakers to understand how best to enforce regulations.”
While some of those present were of the view that local technology companies need to grow bigger before regulations are enforced, the panel disagreed while stating that “ some regulations need to come in instead of waiting for the companies to become too big,” sources said.
Online vs Offline
The need to define the market in segments like hotel and ride-hailing was debated as well as the sensitive issue of challenges faced by gig workers including drivers and delivery staff , said another executive present at the meeting who said the gathering agreed on the need for a robust grievance redressal system.
India’s competition watchdog is also currently probing food delivery firms over trade practices including deep discounting, high commission rates. The probe by the Competition Commission of India ( CCI) was ordered after National Restaurant Association of India (NRAI) complained against Zomato and Swiggy to the antitrust regulator last year.
While the conflict between offline traders and ecommerce companies has been an ongoing topic of discussion for a few years now, food delivery firms are seeing increasing resistance from restaurant partners over various policy matters, including commission rates, private labels and cloud kitchen facilities.
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