Now, get insured, plan your trip, play online games and eat quality food as ONDC expands service base

The government-run Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC) platform has expanded its services by onboarding providers across various sectors, including insurance service provider PolicyBazaar, travel service provider EaseMyTrip, and online gaming portal WinZO. This integration allows users to access a wide range of services on a single platform without incurring any additional costs, said DPIIT secretary R.K. Singh.

ONDC is a private non-profit company established by the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT). It is neither an application nor a software but a network for digital commerce with a mandate to bring all channel partners onto a single network for commuters to access and use the partners’ services.

The platform has already onboarded an array of food aggregators and more are set to join in the coming months, he said.

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The ONDC network is growing and building trust among its users. "It has facilitated 7.22 million transactions in April and onboarded over 5 lakh sellers,” Singh said, adding among the 5 lakh sellers, more than 70% are small or medium-sized sellers.

At a function organised in Delhi, over 125 stakeholders, including startups, unicorns and high-growth businesses such as EaseMyTrip, OfBusiness, WinZO, Livspace, GlobalBees, Pristyn Care, Cars24, Physics Wallah, PolicyBazaar, and Zerodha, signed letters of intent (LoI) in the presence of the DPIIT secretary. A LoI is a step before the signing of a legally binding agreement.  

The ONDC network has rapidly grown and matured over the past one and a half years, and today’s session reflects both the DPIIT’s and industry’s commitment to democratising digital commerce in India, the DPIIT secretary said.

The Union government has also brought 11 fair price shops onto the portal to extend consumer access to food items offered at government-supported shops.

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In the pilot stage, these fair-price shops are open to all except beneficiaries of different food security schemes. These shops also distribute subsidized food grains to individuals in the below and above the poverty line categories.

The state-run portal is also attempting to create a network of last-mile service providers to make travel seamless for commuters moving within cities or even between multiple cities. Namma Yatri, a seller app for auto rickshaws in Bengaluru, developed by payment tech firm Juspay Technologies, is already on ONDC.