ONDC Postpones Roll Out Of Network Charges Till April 1: Report

The government-backed Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC) has reportedly postponed the implementation for the proposed network infrastructure and services fee to April 1.

As per the ET’s report, this decision comes after receiving feedback from network participants and stakeholders.

Inc42 has reached out to ONDC for comments on the development. The story will be updated based on the response.

To note, in December last year, ONDC initially revealed its plans of levying a fee of INR 1.5 for every transaction above INR 250 from January 1.

The extension is intended to provide stakeholders with additional time to align their internal processes and ensure a smooth transition, said the report citing ONDC’s email to its network participants.

The proposed transaction fee will only apply to successful transactions above the INR 250 threshold where no returns or refunds are issued within the specified window. Orders that are cancelled before fulfillment or fall below the value threshold will be exempt from the fee.

Furthermore, the report highlighted that ONDC hit 173.5 Mn transactions until January 31.

This comes more than a month after ONDC’s managing director and chief executive Thampy Koshy said that the number of transactions on ONDC has jumped nearly 3X since December 2023, while also adding that it is expected to grow 7X-8X by December 2025.

Of these, over 20 apps are processing over 1,000 transactions daily while around 12 are handling more than 30,000 transactions every day, Koshi also said. 

It is pertinent to mention that ONDC recorded 14 Mn transactions as of October last year, of which nearly 5.5 Mn transactions came from the mobility segment and 8.4 Mn was via non-mobility segments.

Updated at 11:36 AM