Last year in December we were doing about 5 million monthly transactions. This December we will end with about 15 million monthly transactions. So the growth is very encouraging. We now have about seven lakh sellers and service providers. The ONDC Network has seen a total of more than 150 million transactions. This is very positive for an idea that is just about starting. This is the first time in the world that such an open network has been launched. So overall, I’m happy but we want to be growing faster. If you look at the mobility piece, being a state subject, the Network is currently supporting transactions in 18 cities across eight states. We would have liked to expand it to every state. Similarly, we have enabled many small businesses through the ONDC Network to have a digital presence. From digitisation of their catalogue to efficient order fulfilment, they require a lot of hand-holding. One of the key focuses for us is to grow the share of small businesses in terms of transactions being done through the network.

In the coming year, we want to attract more and more digitally mature consumers and digitally mature sellers to the network to grow transactions across segments. At the same time, touching lives and empowering small businesses and merchants is an equally important North Star for us. So, we are getting a lot of farmer producer organisations (FPOs), SHGs and small merchants to onboard on the Network.

We need to act as an orchestrator to bring the various stakeholders to come together on a common agenda. For example, we are working with the Ministry of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises, which is offering financial assistance to small businesses to onboard the ONDC Network. We expect to see similar kinds of initiatives from other Ministries and state governments.

So in 2025, our focus will be enabling the idea of Bharat Ek Bazaar (One Nation, One Digital Market). Another big focus area for us is to make logistics-as-a-service much more powerful in the network because for the business to prosper it is a key enabler.

It will be a network development fee because eventually, we have to become a self-sustaining entity. Profit maximisation or dividend distribution is not our intention. So we have to get the people used to the idea of a very small transaction fee. We intend to eventually start charging a network fee, probably once NPs build momentum, maybe in the coming year.

Our challenge is to change habits and enable a large cross-section of people to come onto the network. We want to get more buyer applications on ONDC. We are also looking at how to bring in more specialised buying applications that will enable the adoption of digital commerce such as assisted commerce. It is not about competing with the large e-commerce players, it is about transforming the way digital commerce is done in the country while making it inclusive. We will need to bring different communities and partners to focus on One Nation One Digital Market.

We are growing between 10 – 15 per cent every month. In October, we had about 4.40 lakh daily transactions. In November it grew to 4.80 lakh daily transactions and in December it is now at 5.1 lakh daily transactions. With partners like Bajaj and Ola coming in, we expect to see a further surge in the number of transactions. We hope to see DMRC on the ONDC network soon. Mumbai metro will also be coming soon on ONDC. States such as West Bengal, Odisha and Andhra Pradesh among others have launched statewide initiatives to help local businesses to onboard. The beauty is when you are creating an open and public protocol then more and more partners contribute, build and innovate.