E-commerce Needs More Than Platforms: The Missing Links in India’s Infrastructure

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We are talking today about the role of e-commerce in India's economy, a report from the Centre for the Digital Future. Now the background is this, the total number of online shoppers in India in 2023 were about 250 million, by 2027 this could go to 425 million. In terms of people employed by the sector, the total number of workers in the digital economy in 22-23, that's only two years ago, were about 14 million, but that figure could go substantially higher in coming years.

Now this is all based on various data sets including done by the government. About four and a half million of this are platform-based gig workers, that's right now, and digital content creation. Now the other contextual point is this, in China today the share of e-commerce in total commerce is about 27 percent, in the United States is about 22 percent, but in India it's only eight percent, that's eight percent of total retail.

The other big opportunities are our e-commerce exports, currently about four and a half billion, but that could go to over 200 billion dollars by 2030. Now there are a lot of reasons why things are not where they are or could be somewhere else, if of course the economy as a whole was doing better, we had more growth, more private investment, more capital investment, more investment by enterprises, but the question today is really can e-commerce act as the big enabler and to what extent can it act as an enabler for three or four things. One is of course creating more retail commerce and creating more markets or improving access to markets, the second is employment itself, the third is investment and what is it that we will take to enable all of this or accelerate all of this.

To discuss all of this, I'm joined today by R Chandrasekhar, Chairperson of the Centre for the Digital Future. Mr Chandrasekhar is a former IT Secretary of the Government of India, Telecom Secretary, he also was Chairman Telecom Commission of India and also President of the National Association of Software and Services Companies on NASSCOM, where I've had my first interaction with him. In the past he's been conferred the Prime Minister's Award for Excellence in Public Administration and is originally from the Andhra Pradesh Chakadar of the Indian Administrative Service.

Thank you very much for joining me. Thank you for having me. So let's start with the big question, which is that the opportunity seems huge, I mean even if you were to first go with the number of consumers, 250 million, that seems like a fairly large number already but it could go to 420 million or more in only a couple of years. So where are we today and what's holding back the growth?

Well I think you know, if you look at e-commerce, what we were focused on in the work that we were doing in CDF was, as you said, there is a big opportunity clearly and the impact is on multiple dimensions of e-commerce and all of these are very important for the economy, whether you talk about the consumption, which of late has been flagging a little bit or you talk about employment, which again is an area of some concern or you look at the investment patterns where also there have been some trends which are a cause for concern. So the whole point was to actually see what are all these different dimensions of impact and also the context in which it is happening.

So what I mentioned is the current context and these different dimensions are important and therefore, the question is, when we compare ourselves with other comparable economies, are we doing everything we can to grow this or has there been any sort of degree of ambivalence in terms of how we look at e-commerce. So these were the questions, the idea was to really research this and come up with more evidence-based information and insights and that's what this paper has done. So what the paper has shown is that yes, we've been growing well in e-commerce, there has been a fairly rapid growth.

As you said, even the data which projects the growth in terms of the number of shoppers between 2023 and 2027, it's almost a 70 percent increase and by any parameter, if you see the scope for growth is very high. A lot of policy enablers are in place but I think it's important to recognise that there are some areas where the growth is also getting constrained and I think that is something which needs to be looked at.

So let's go step by step. So let's first start with the impact of e-commerce on consumption. Now we've just seen a series of rate cuts announced by the government in goods and services tax which has brought down rates quite substantially for everyone, offline benefits, online benefits, plus we are in the middle of the festival season, so that's also a booster which would have of course happened in a normal year as well but there's definitely many boosters coming together. So what is it that e-commerce can do at a time like this to boost consumption which otherwise has been flagging, at least if we go by corporate results and so on?

So I think the best example would be why the GST reform at this point in time. I think the stated aspiration was that it will actually bring down costs which hopefully will be passed on to the consumers and that in turn will boost consumption. Of course, we also know that GST was originally intended to integrate the India's economy into one large economy rather than a fragmented economy.

Interestingly enough, both these characteristics hold good for e-commerce as well because buyers as well as sellers who get on to e-commerce actually have the whole national and in fact the international markets which get accessed. So I think that is one important factor. The second is that given the kind of optimisation of the transaction costs that e-commerce can bring that translates into a huge reduction in the cost to the consumer, eventual delivered cost to the consumer and I think all of us who have used e-commerce have experienced that in our own life.

The huge difference between the cost when you get in e-commerce, get something through e-commerce and when you go in the conventional way and it's not as if these are because of some predatory pricing or nobody can subsidise a country as big as India. So these are really efficiencies that are being brought in and efficiencies which lead to consumer gain. That I think is the essence of the whole story.

But and you're also arguing that essentially the propensity to consume will shift or increase when there is e-commerce or the same goods are available through e-commerce because the market access is so much more deeper and wider.

Yes, two things. One is that I have a certain amount of money that I want to spend and if I'm able to buy more with that same money then obviously I am likely to do that. The second is we've also seen a little bump which comes up because of the sheer ease of the transaction and the exposure that people have to a multiplicity of products. We've also seen different kinds of credit facilities also being advanced which are linked to people's purchasing power. All of these factors when you put them together would lead to an inference that a more pervasive presence and use of e-commerce across the country would actually work to the benefit of consumers.

But there's an equally interesting aspect which is the benefit to the producers. Hitherto I think a lot of the producers and especially the small ones and the medium ones tended to focus on markets around them rather than the nationwide market and in many cases much less the international market. So because of that their production also increases.

So there are knock-on effects that when those smaller and medium-sized producers actually are able to grow by getting into markets which they were not earlier then that produces again an economic booster in terms of more of production, more of jobs, more of turnover and so all of these aspects I think would actually be beneficial for the economy.

Is there any distinction between the way producers will serve the international consumer versus local consumer? The reason I'm asking this is, so let's say we have some concerns about the policy environment for domestic e-commerce but is cross-border e-commerce also affected by that and if so how?

Well actually as far as the exports are concerned, for exports I think the government has been in general very supportive of export and whatever is required but a lot of the producers and manufacturers especially as I said the small and medium ones and those who have niche products where the quality is of a global level but the reach is simply not there because all of these things cost money to access those markets if you approach it in the traditional way. What e-commerce offers is a way to completely bypass all those barriers and it vastly lowers the entry cost for small and mid-sized producers to a global market and I think that is really what needs to be leveraged.

The second thing is that you know the quality standards when you look at a global market will need to be met and the kind of feedback mechanisms that are available through e-commerce also serves as a input for producers to improve their product, improve their productivity, improve their efficiencies to bring the cost to a internationally competitive level all of which are a huge necessity for our economy at this point.

So one of the points we're making in the report is that when transaction costs are high households adjust their consumption towards what is accessible rather than preferred limiting variety substitution and responsiveness to income. So has this been the phenomenon all these years or does this also change with times?

Well, I think that that is you know something which is fairly evident from the way in which e-commerce has been working and also from the way in which the Indian consumer, the mindset of the Indian consumer. India as everybody has acknowledged especially global investors who are not familiar with India is a tremendously price sensitive market and it is also a market where brand loyalty is not very high.

The moment somebody offers a better deal people shift their preferences. So I think what e-commerce does is to really put more choice in the hands of the consumer and also put more pressure on the producers and manufacturers to meet international and national standards of pricing and quality.

I know this is a little tough to estimate but if I were to round off this part, are we able to project that okay if we are able to increase or improve let's say access quality by this much then it could lead to a consumption boost of that much.

Well, actually you know if you see in the paper that we have come up with we have also mentioned because clearly a paper like this cannot be the last word on every aspect of e-commerce. So we also mentioned what are the areas which require further research. So some of those metrics like x percentage of something, what does it translate into and how do you correlate the two because there are many factors which impact for example consumption.

So how do you actually make sense of this data, how do you disaggregate other impacts which may be also occurring at the same time and so on. So I think there are some areas which need further research. In fact, we have pointed them out in the paper.

For example, the participation rate, what's the trend in the participation rate and what are the drivers for this participation. The second is in terms of the impact on the labour market, how are the labour market shifting because it's well recognised that e-commerce alters the whole structure of commerce and also the labour market. But contrary to some perceptions, actually for every employment in the traditional retail sector which is replaced, 2.5 employment opportunities get created through e-commerce. So it's actually a huge net employment creator.

So this would be technology distribution, warehouses.

Yes, all across the entire supply chain. It's not only in terms of the technology and the platforms which of course are much more limited but even in terms of delivery, in terms of warehousing, all of those aspects of the chain. And if you look at the future, there's a lot in the infrastructure sector which needs to be done but is not currently getting addressed. For example, coal chains and as you look at integrating the national market for a variety of products, then the availability of such infrastructure becomes a constraint because merely enabling e-commerce doesn't free up everything to get into the market.

It has to have enabling infrastructure but I think the point which the paper also brings out is that while this is the compulsion or the necessity, investment rates have actually been falling. That is something which again is a matter of concern. So I think the question is how do we actually boost the growth of e-commerce to reach the kind of levels that we see in other comparable economies.

And you're saying that will in turn further trigger, it's not that investment is not happening in areas like coal chain and so on.

Yes, initially a lot of it is in delivery and warehousing but as this penetration gets deeper, as the range of products gets wider, then we can expect other kinds of infrastructure like coal chain really to come in. The other thing is which we know is that the penetration of e-commerce today is still a very urban kind of a phenomenon.

The penetration in the rural areas is very limited. Now it's not that the rural areas don't need e-commerce, on the contrary they would probably need it much more because their price sensitivity is even higher. But that requires a different kind of infrastructure because the volumes are different, the density of buyers is different and businesses have to figure that out.

I mean it's not something that a research paper can find and you have to let businesses experiment and that is where certain kinds of regulations perhaps are impeding that penetration into rural areas as well. Just as an example, we need to be very careful about how pricing regulation is done because every reduction in price is not necessarily a predatory case of predatory pricing. It's a very well recognised market penetration strategy.

So you're referring to the CCI cost of production.

Yes, that's one part of it but as a more general proposition, not just about what the CCI is saying. But you know, businesses once they are have an incentive to penetrate the market, they would do what it needs to penetrate that market even if it means in the initial phase no profitability or even an outflow of investment.

As they have done. So I think opening up the market itself requires different strategies and companies do that. So we should be very carefully, I mean the regulation needs to be very carefully calibrated to control any behaviour that is risky from a consumer point of view but at the same time not constraining legitimate business strategies to open up the market.

Right, so let's come to employment now. So that's the other, let's say bucket where you feel that there could be change and there could be increase in both direct and indirect employment if there was more e-commerce activity. So we've touched upon consumption. So we're saying that if there is one way to increase consumption rather than the other way around is to let's say expand e-commerce and availability of products through the e-commerce chain.Obviously to do all of this you need more people and therefore there would be more employment. Now that employment could be of various kinds as we've just touched upon it with technology, warehouse distribution and all that but how are you looking at the overall picture in terms of where we could, I mean where could the big shifts come?

Yeah, you see when you talk about employment in an Indian context, what we need in employment is scale, big numbers because if you are employing a few thousand people that's good but from an India overall perspective it doesn't really move the needle. So we're really looking at something which has very large numbers. The second thing is the nature of the employment, whether that employment actually is of a nature that people are in a position to fill and I think if you look at things in the digital infrastructure itself like for example at the platform level or at the tech support level, those jobs are relatively small in number and a little more demanding in terms of the skills required which many people will not have. Those numbers are still quite small, the whole of the IT industry employs around five million people.

So it's still not that big a number in an Indian context, in the context of 1400 million people, 1.4 billion people. So I think this mass, the other interesting thing is that the kind of jobs which get created are those which a lot of people can fulfil and in India, we have evolved our own brand of e-commerce which is a little different from some of the developed economies. For example, the whole delivery mechanism has become so very convenient, this quick commerce which is not so common in other countries is possible in India and it's possible to make a business proposition out of it because of our entire context and therefore I think these employment opportunities are really quite important and again if you look at some of those kinds of employment opportunities, the spin-off effects are the need for, for example, for more delivery people, for the vehicles which in through which you can deliver, for the manufacturing which creates those vehicles and then the demand there also gets a boost. So there are many different dimensions where this impact would be felt and I do think that we should be focused on how do we actually maximise that.

And I mean, you've not touched much upon this but your general sense on what is the kind of protection and let's say regulatory support for workers in this space including gig economy?

Yeah, so I think that the, as far as the workers in the e-commerce sector are concerned, evidently they would also need the kind of protections that are available to gig workers in the economy because this is not the only sector which is employing gig workers and I don't think it's anybody's case that the same protection should not be there, it should be. Why not? And whatever be that protection, the market will sort of absorb that.

Unless you have a proper protection for the gig workers in the e-commerce market, it will not grow sustainably because people will start leaving, there will be high attrition levels, the quality of the service will go down. So I think that balance is something that regulation needs to address but as I said, the balance is always between providing the appropriate restrictions without constraining investment or innovation or growth. And in a somewhat different context, in the context of AI, both the finance minister and the IT minister have said that given our stage of development, we would lean more towards innovation which is absolutely important for leapfrog growth as opposed to constrictive regulation and I think that's absolutely the right approach and that needs to be followed in the e-commerce as well.

Right, so you touched upon investment. So when it comes to investment in the e-commerce space, so maybe for chronological reasons and the growth of the market and its relative maturity in a certain amount of time, we've seen the investments come, I mean drop. So I think the figure from your report is that in 2021, B2C businesses were about 13 billion, B2B and enabling businesses about 6.6, so almost 20 billion and then since then it's been coming down for various reasons but by 24, enabling sectors were only at a billion dollars. So and I think what you've argued is that even if you exclude the 2021 jump, it's now below those earlier trends that we were seeing. So I mean one is to say that all the investment is all gone in, so now you don't need to invest as much, that's one way of looking at it. The other is that there's still a long runway ahead and we still need to invest.So what's your view?

I think it's absolutely clear that there is no argument at all in favour of all the required investment having been done because as I said, first of all we and you also mentioned that the penetration, I mean e-commerce accounts for about eight percent in India, it's 27 percent in China, 22 percent in the US. We also know that penetration is largely confined to the urban and maybe tier two or at most a few tier three cities.

So there's a long way to go for the required investment to come in. So clearly I think the specific regulatory issues are one part of it. For example, the need to make GST also a little more friction-free for e-commerce and things like that.

I mean as you sell in multiple states, you have to register everywhere.

Yes, I mean one should carefully review the compliance overheads. Again, it's not that compliance is not needed, obviously compliance is needed but what is the regulatory and procedural overhead?

What is the amount of business friction that it brings in and are there any barriers? So these are the kind of things which need actually to be studied. So I think that is one part and again for the rural sector also, the kind of investments that are required would need to be supplemented.

The last point I want to emphasise is that for large investments to occur, not only there has to be a supportive regulatory and policy environment but there also has to be clarity and certainty because any uncertainty on that front is a huge dampener for investment and I think at a time when we need massive investments to go in and unlock the opportunities for the consumer and unlock opportunities for the producer. That's where the primary focus needs to be and I think this is what has been emphasised even by the finance minister and the IT minister in the context of AI but the same thing is applicable in the context of e-commerce as well.

Right and I'm going to talk about regulation in a moment. Just to pick up another point on infrastructure, so your paper has say that the investment in enabling infrastructure has slowed down and it's not clear why that's happened. So define for us what is enabling infrastructure versus infrastructure that we still need to spend and how could it go?

Well, you know the direct infrastructure for e-commerce of course is the platforms, the data centres, the applications and you know all the people who are involved in that but the support infrastructure is a lot of physical infrastructure that is required. It could be for example, we've already talked a little bit about warehousing for example, we've talked about the possibility of cold chains which really haven't come up, those kind of things but when you look and then we've talked about the kind of infrastructure that is required for optimising delivery, the kind of transportation infrastructure that is required. When you go to rural areas, the connectivity infrastructure also becomes an issue, so you get into deeper and harder kinds of infrastructure.

So I think the whole point is to give a chance or allow business considerations to drive the organic growth of such infrastructure based and in that respect, I think e-commerce is a useful lever to apply.

Okay, so let's talk about regulation now which is of course sits on top of all of this. So there are a bunch of regulations which govern the sector and they range from the consolidated FDI policy which we've just touched upon earlier in the show when we talked about how much inventory e-commerce companies can hold particularly if they're already owned by foreign entities.

There's the cost of production under the competition commission of India, there's a draft digital competition bill of 2024 and then there are other areas to do with GST which we've already touched upon and we've seen lower GST rates and also promise of GST reform from the Prime Minister himself and down the line. So what would be the first and most important area to address in terms of let's say speed of response right now from a regulatory point of view to achieve some of these points that we've talked about earlier including the consumption boost that we're looking for.

So when you say speed of response, you are referring to speed of response in terms of the growth of the sector or speed of response of the regulation and the lobbying.

What should we be picking up first if we were to prioritise very quickly?

I think that we should be definitely looking at the investment side of it first, both in terms of the actual provisions that are seen as problematic by those who are able to invest. We need to look at both domestic and foreign investment because in the digital domain we know that from India's experience that the vast majority of that investment is actually foreign investment, it's not domestic investment and it's foreign investment based on a perception of market growth and a perception of profitability which has to be there.

So looking at the investment aspect of it and what are the concerns that investors have in investing, not just in e-commerce or the direct expense on setting up e-commerce business but also on the supporting infrastructure which we talked about. So that is one clear aspect. The second is to actually, it's a more soft issue, it's a more perceptional issue but it's a question of ensuring greater stability in the policy and regulatory approaches so that the investment can be made keeping a longer term time horizon in mind.

I think we've reached some limits of where short-term investment can get us but now we are coming to the harder part of e-commerce where investment has to be made with a longer time.

What's an example of a regulatory shift which illustrates this point which is that the lack of certainty?

So for example, I think when we are looking at foreign investment and if we think that in this sector as in most of the digital domain, a lot of the investment is going to come from overseas then it does require a relook as to whether the policy framework for foreign investment can be, whether it can be modified to encourage such investment that boost the growth of e-commerce rather than being seen as something which is restricted. It's true that these restrictions are there only for the foreign investment and not there for the domestic investment but then the question is then why are these gaps in supporting infrastructure still there because domestic investment is not going into those areas as of now and I think that somewhere that lockjam has to be broken and if it happens through foreign investment so be it and as you go along one could figure out you know what changes if any are required based on how the market is developing.

But your feeling is that foreign investment is more likely to go towards enabling infrastructure for e-commerce than domestic?

It depends on how the policy is framed and there are ways and I think we have seen in the past also a linkage between infrastructure and market access and investment. All I'm saying is that we need to maximise or at the very least optimise foreign investment and we need to have a environment which encourages that to go into not only e-commerce but the supporting infrastructure as well and the fact of the matter is that irrespective of investment without the supporting infrastructure e-commerce will not be able to grow. So if for nothing else but purely for business reasons there will be you know a compulsion or a business requirement to invest in supporting infrastructure.

Of course that will happen on the basis of market dynamics and it may not be uniform but that is where again you know policy can make, we can structure interventions in the interest of you know greater spread of such infrastructure.

Right and I'm going to come to some of the areas that you're looking at in future to address including data gaps and so on. But if I were to ask you now what are some of the areas where the industry now also needs to be careful and cautious as it grows so as to ensure that it endures itself to the economy and the economic principles that we generally stand by or stand with.

I think first of all the advent of e-commerce itself did bring a certain beneficial shift in some of these practises which consumers themselves felt you know whether it was a return policy or you know particular Indian variants like cash on delivery and so on. There were a lot of business innovations that were required and this..

Or adjusted payments like EMIs and so on, on much smaller tickets.

Yes and therefore that brought in, in fact what you mentioned reminds me that that is another important support infrastructure, the payment infrastructure and the credit infrastructure.

So when you link e-commerce with the payment infrastructure and the credit infrastructure, it becomes a very powerful instrument for boosting consumption. So I think these are the kind of on the positive side. On the negative side, I think there have been you know some references to some of the risks that are involved. You know mention has been made of things like dark patterns or use of AI in ways that are not desirable in terms of drawing consumers and so on. I would believe that as of now those are still a very small percentage of the cases and in any case a regulatory approach to dealing with those edge cases needs to be there. The critical thing is see it is no, it cannot be anybody's case that regulation is not required, it's required. There are no two opinions about that. The point is to not throw out the baby along with the bath water and that is where the primary I think focus has to be on growth, enabling investment, enabling employment and then trying to moderate whatever is the downside that is seen. And again there also rather than imagine what downsides there could be, to look at where there are real problems and where those problems are actually manifest in the field and where they are reaching a certain critical level which warrants action. But not that one approaches this without a sense of proportion. So a proportion, a sense of proportion and a balance is what is needed.

And when you say this, where does this ball land in, I mean Government of India is a big entity.

Oh yes, I can certainly vouch for that. It's an ocean and there are many different pillars on which it stands and there are issues like this which for example the e-commerce policy is made by the Department of Industry and Commerce and the payments and the credit aspects is with the Ministry of Finance and the RBI and the digital aspects and the AI and the data regulation is with the Ministry of IT and the consumer protection is with the Department of Consumer Affairs. So there is enough for everybody to chew on. The point however is that the agendas of all of these ministries which have an important role to play needs to be converged and for that converged agenda, the priorities need to be made very clear.

I think the signalling that is coming from the Prime Minister, from the Finance Minister, from the IT Minister has been very clear and highly desirable that this is the direction in which we need to go, this is what we need to do and particularly in today's very turbulent global environment, we have to sort of lift ourselves and our economy by the bootstraps and use whatever levers we can and clearly e-commerce is one of them.

Got it, so looking at future research direction, that's your term. One of the areas that you are looking at is participation data. Today, a lot of data is more macro and I think what we desire, even the government desires, including the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation, they want to integrate more e-commerce data so that we have a sense on how consumers are consuming, what and how much and so on.

So more micro level data for firm level, including firm level transactions, consumer demand, so that's what you want. Second, I think you've talked about labour market outcomes, while employment has obviously grown, we don't know too much about job quality, income volatility and stability and so on, which also leads to other issues of job security or is linked to job security and finally, the whole idea of investment behaviour and regulatory uncertainty, which we've already touched upon. So, maybe if you could spend a little bit on the first two.

Yeah, I think I would spend a little time on all the three because you would have noticed a delicious twist to this. This is also a PLI, participation, labour and investment. These are the three areas which require further research.

The participation aspect is important because we are talking really about a situation where the market penetration is far below what it ought to be or what it is in comparable markets. So this kind of granular participation data by region, by location, which no doubt will then be cross verified with reference to economic data points and other such pointers for businesses to make their own decisions. The second thing is, if there is low participation in some area, is it because affordability is not there?

Is it because the digital infrastructure is not there? Is it because the digital literacy is not there? We don't know.

So unless you have granular participation data, then trying to figure out what is holding it up and where correctives need to be applied will not be very clear because for a country as big as India and perhaps for even for some of the larger states, a very macro kind of data doesn't really help in terms of, you know, pinpointing what needs to be done. So that kind of data, I think is extremely important and critical. It needs to be done and made publicly available.

By the e-commerce companies?

Not necessarily by the e-commerce companies. It could even be done on the basis of government surveys.

For example, you have the national survey, you have GST data. If you can disaggregate, for example, the e-commerce data and then say that, okay, this is what the GST data is showing or you have, you know, the various, you know, like the CMI, the NSSO and so on. So all these kinds of data points need to be actually studied and it requires, you know, proper statistically validated methodologies to be applied.

That is beyond the scope of a research paper that requires people on the ground, boots on the ground. Again, if you look at the labour market outcomes, as I said, you know, e-commerce is a major boost to the employment, all the data shows that. It is a shift in employment, there is no question about it.

Yes, there is a shift. But definitely the numbers seem to be stacking up very much in favour. However, as some people have pointed out, the shift in the nature may have some other areas of concern.

For example, the gender balance in the kind of employment that gets created in as a result of e-commerce versus the kind of employment that is getting shifted into the e-commerce space like shop assistants and so on. So those are the kind of things where a labour market assessment will actually help so that we can then see, you know, what steps need to be done, whether it is in terms of skilling, whether it is in terms of any other kind of correctives that are required, is what a research study would bring out. I think what is important is not so much whether it is done by the private sector or by the government, but a credible and scientifically, you know, conducted.

Conducted and acceptable.

And acceptable assessment is required. And there is, you know, an agenda based on data and evidence and a policy framework based on data and evidence is that much more likely to succeed in achieving the object.

And you're saying that also all of this, if done well, will lead to investment behaviour that is conducive to more investment coming in. Yes, of course, there are many moving parts, as I said, this is one aspect of it. The policy, you know, consistency and the supportive policy environment are the others.

And then the regulatory framework, including the modalities of implementation of existing, you know, levies like the GST, etc. All of these actually need to be worked out together. And it would be good to actually, you know, try and address all of these and dot those I's and cross the T's because the big things, most of them are in place.

But some of these things, I think, still need to be tweaked and optimised.

Right. So last question. So, as you said, this can be approached in many ways, or it can be skinned in many ways. So the government, at least in recent weeks following the whole tariff imbroglio, has used that for, including for other reasons to create a sense of economic reform with GST 2.0, and so on. The larger idea being obviously, to kickstart or spur consumption further. So if that is now beginning to happen, do you feel now confident in some ways that many of the issues that you're raising will get addressed in the slipstream, so to speak?

Well, I think the signals are very, very encouraging. And I think there's every reason to be optimistic about it. As I said, you know, the question is, how it can be followed through and of detail. So how well those signals which are coming from the top from the Prime Minister, the Finance Minister, the IT Minister, and so on, how well those get translated so that, you know, those intents are not lost in translation.

That's a good note to end on, Mr. Chandrasekhar. Thank you so much for joining me today.

Thank you. Thank you for having me. It's a pleasure.

Author:   The Core Team

This week on The Core Report: Weekend Edition, Govindraj Ethiraj speaks with R. Chandrasekhar, chairperson of the Centre for the Digital Future, who cautions that logistics, cold chains, transport and rural connectivity remain weak spots — and without them, India risks capping its e-commerce potential.

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e-commerce infrastructure Investment consumption consumer spend