Sources said the PMO wants the policy to be in place by the end of the current financial year.At present, 100 per cent FDI is allowed in
business-to-business (B2B) e-commerce, while business-to-consumer (B2C) is prohibited. Besides, there is a mandatory 30 per cent local sourcing norms for foreign players.
In India, online services such as ticketing, net-banking, payment of taxes, bill payment, matrimonial sites are developing by the day. So are goods retailing sites such as
flipkart.com,
jabong.com, and
FirstCry.com, among others, that sell anything from books to bags.DIPP is faced with another problem. In some cases, foreign players have already tied up with domestic companies. As a result, these players are now not so enthused with the government’s decision to allow FDI at this juncture.
Large international players such as
Amazon and
eBay are currently in discussion with DIPP on what the possible outcome in case FDI is allowed. Apparently, they are pushing for this heavily as they find the Indian market “extremely lucrative”.
