Government’s Last-Minute U-Turn on E-Commerce

The Union Government had made a crucial change to the list of activities and services that will be functional from April 20 in parts of the country least affected by the coronavirus outbreak. Accordingly, it has modified its earlier order of resuming the operations of e-commerce websites.

A brief order by Home Secretary Ajay Bhalla said: “‘E-commerce companies (and) vehicles used by e-commerce operators will be allowed to ply with necessary permissions’ – is excluded from the guidelines”. There are divided opinions about this move. The Brick and Mortar stores have pressurized the Government to take back the order since it would eat away their market totally.

Experts say that if the e-commerce websites are fully functional, they would give no reason for a good chunk of people to go out of their houses. “The Government will also make some good bucks from this sale,” they say. This will be a big blow to the electronics and Home Appliances companies which can not offload their stocks online and offline.

Summer and Lockdown makes a perfect season for these companies. According to the stats available with the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, the total number of Coronavirus cases in India stands at 15,712.