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Where Commerce Meet Governance: An Indian State Sets Up Digital Marketplace for Local Traders

According to PTI, Dilli Bazaar will feature over 10,000 vendors from across the state. For the uninitiated, Dilli Bazaar is the Delhi government’s ambitious effort to give its traders access to a global market. After starting off with 10,000 vendors, the government aims to onboard over one lakh Delhi shops to the portal. That’s planned to happen within a period of six months.

“Delhi’s markets will be known all over the world in the coming years. By December 2022, ‘Dilli Bazaar’ will be launched with store fronts of 10,000 shops in Delhi. The Delhi government will connect one lakh sellers to the portal in the first phase,”

Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal was quoted as saying.

People will also be able to get virtual tours of the markets in Delhi and navigate the streets and shops of that market right from their homes.

While enrolling the merchants, the government says that the market association will verify their credentials. Furthermore, there will be an agency to oversee the operations of the e-portal. The government also claims that products listed on the portal will be more affordable than other e-commerce portals. Each merchant will also get a personalized storefront.

What’s worth noting here is that Dilli Bazaar will adopt the highly anticipated Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC) protocol. This should ensure that customers will see product listings from other participating e-commerce portals too.

This provision will help the shopkeepers of Delhi get a digital presence not just on the Dilli Bazaar portal but on various e-commerce portals opening a wide horizon of opportunities for them,”

the statement said.