The Open Network for Digital Commerce, an initiative supported by the Government of India, has begun to show interest in a new field of activity.

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ONDC, a non-profit firm that was established in 2021 by the Indian Ministry of Commerce, announced the launch of its railways to serve mobile companies. This was announced by representatives of this company on March 23 at a press conference in Bangalore.

The company begins its mobility journey with the introduction of Namma Yatri, an on-demand auto-rickshaw booking application operating in Bangalore. The open-source mobile application developed by the payment startup Juspay serves almost 500 thousand customers and cooperates with 45 thousand drivers.

Namma Yatri sets ambitious goals, the main one of which is a full-fledged competition between Ola and Uber. The company has a strategy of forming its own competitiveness, which provides for a reduction in the rate of fees related to both drivers and customers.

Ti Cauchy, executive director of ONDC, said that the company intends to expand the geography of the implementation of the concept of mobility. This means that the corresponding services will appear in new states and cities. It is also planned to expand the range of available vehicles in the near future.

Anurag Jain, Secretary of the Department for the Promotion of Industry and Domestic Trade, says that transport can become convenient and affordable in the growing cities of India only if maximum access to it is ensured. He noted that open systems, such as ONDC, provide cooperation and interoperability, without which this goal will not be achieved.

By expanding the scope of activities of ONDC, New Delhi intends to repeat in another area the successful experience of UPI, the mobile payment network that destroyed the mobile wallets of firms such as Paytm and MobiKwik.

ONDC, inheriting a positive example, is still far from its original goal, which is not transport mobility, but active activity in the field of e-commerce. The company does not have enough partners to realize its ambitions. The number of transactions on the network is showing growth, but it does not meet the initial expectations.

ONDC reports on negotiations with Reliance Retail, Google Pay, Dunzo, and WhatsApp from Meta in order to establish partnerships. At the same time, Ti Cauchy says that growth can be achieved without interaction with major players. He also states that there are no more open networks in the world.

As we have reported earlier, UAE and India to Test Cross-Border CBDC Use.