DPIIT should stop meeting foreign e-commerce reps when they come via apex chambers: CAIT

The CAIT also announced that more than 40,000 small and big trade associations across the country will observe March 25 as 'e-commerce Democracy Day' and on March 28, traders all over the country will burn effigies of Amazon and Flipkart as part of 'Holika Dahan' at more than 1,000 places across the country to register their resentment against the foreign funded e-commerce companies controlling, monopolising and dominating the e-commerce space through subterfuge entities like Cloudtail.

The CAIT said that DPIIT meeting India-based representatives from Amazon, Flipkart percolated within the cover of its respected apex chambers of commerce and industry is akin to falling for wolves in sheep's clothing.

"It is perfectly fine for DPIIT to meet any of these executives under their own company's banner, but deeply problematic for them to be allowed to pass off their machinations under the holy banners of CII, NASSCOM, Assocham, PhDCCI, NASSCOM, FICCI etc.," CAIT said.

"These ‘Macaulay Putras' are stooges serving a colonising power. The foreign handler/s in question are eating into our trade dynamic and mechanism. Meeting the ‘Macaulay Putras', acting as chairmen and co-chairmen of e-commerce committees in our apex chambers, is a confusing signal to agencies like ED probing these very handlers, ‘Macaulay Putras' and downstream entities," the body added.

CAIT said that both Amazon and Flipkart have been behaving like "cowboys" in India for far too long and their business model persists with gross malpractices despite several public warnings by Goyal. Their scant respect to Indian laws, rules and regulations has made a joke of the country's marketplace model applicable on these foreign platforms.

It is time a strong word is sent out by the DPIIT that India's administrative system is capable of protecting the sanctity of its own laws and rules.

Therefore, a thorough plugging of loopholes needs to be released without further loss of time, it said.

CAIT also announced to expose the illegal and unauthorised cartel of e-commerce companies, brand owing companies and banks, which are working hand-in-glove to cause further damage to the business of traders in the country. These entities have come on a common platform to flout Indian laws and rules.

A comprehensive memorandum will be handed over to about 700 district collectors in the country on March 25 exposing this unethical cartel of banks, brand owing companies and e-commerce platforms, it said.