Government efforts to ease e-commerce rules: Current Affairs Special Series

Team Adda247 and BankersAdda are here with a Current Affairs Special Series. In this series, candidates will be introduced to current affairs topics daily, which will not only improve their general awareness but also will ensure that the candidates do not lack in any current affairs topic. Today’s Current Affairs topic in India is Government efforts to ease e-commerce rules.

Government Efforts To Ease E-Commerce Rules

Union Government has brought forward several amendments in the e-commerce rules to bring transparency and curb the prevalent unfair trade practices in the online marketing platforms. The government is sharing a draft of the proposed amendments to the Consumer Protection (E-commerce) Rules, 2020, to protect the interest of consumers and encourage free and fair competition in the market. 

According to the proposed rules, the e-commerce platforms will be required to appoint a Chief Compliance Officer, a Nodal Officer, a Resident Grievance Officer and other officials to ensure compliance with the provisions of the Act and Rules. It has been preferred to put in place a framework for registration of every e-commerce entity with the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade for allotment of the registration number. This registration number will be displayed in an attractive way on the website as well as the invoice of every order. 

The government has also proposed a prohibition on entities on mis-spelling in which they sell goods and services by misrepresenting information. To ensure that consumers can know all the information about the expiry date of the products they are buying on the e-commerce platform, all sellers will have to mention ‘best before or use before date’ to aware consumers of making an informed purchase decision. 

The government clarified that conventional e-commerce flash sales are not banned but it also specified that flash sale or back to back sales which limit customer choice, increasing prices and limit a level playing field are not allowed. 

The centre asked for views and suggestions on these amendments till the 6th of July. After that Government will take concrete steps to amend rules for e-commerce. The government believed that the e-commerce sector can boost the economy drastically and consumers can avail their products or services without waiting for many periods and without any hurdles even if there is any lockdown situation in view of curbing coronavirus.