Amid media report about Ministry of MSME joining hands with Amazon & Flipkart to bring MSMEs of the Country on their e-commerce platform for growth of their business, the Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT) in a letter sent to Union Minister for MSME Nitin Gadkari has raised strong objections on such a move and said that both Amazon and Flipkart are killing the domestic trade and why the Government is joining hands with them to kill the traders of the Country.
CAIT National President B.C. Bhartia & Secretary General Praveen Khandelwal while expressing utter surprise said that the move of Ministry of MSME is being initiated when Union Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal is most vocal against the malpractices of e-commerce Companies which are indulging into predatory pricing and deep discounting much against the provisions of FDI policy. It has further surprising that both Amazon & Flipkart who have been proved to be in violation of FDI policy of your own Government and still the Ministry is more inclined to join hands with policy violators. It is also highly regretted that both Amazon & Flipkart are destroying, devastating the business of 7 crore traders in the Country and now with this move the Government will also joining them to kill traders and their businesses. The entire trading community in the Country is under deep shock for such a move of the Ministry of MSME under your able charge.
Both Bhartia & Khandelwal said that Prime Minister Narendra Modi is repeatedly advocating the empowerment of SMEs in India and in pursuance of the same various visionary programs have been initiated by the Government. While appreciating the intent of MSME Ministry to encourage growth of business of MSMEs by bringing them on online platforms, they said that instead of creating an independent e commerce portal, joining hands with Companies like Amazon & Flipkart who are established as habitual offenders world over, is highly derogatory and will adversely impact on the integrity of the Government.
In view of the intention of the Ministry to digitalise MSMEs of the Country which is a welcome move, the CAIT has expressed its support for creating an independent portal for digitalising the not only the MSMEs but even 7 crore traders of the Country with integration of digital payments and logistics and having no element of commission on sales of products. It has said that Amazon & Flipkart are charging commission from 8% to 30% on sale of various products on their portals besides violating FDI policy. The CAIT has sought an appointment with Nitin Gadkari on this issue.
