New Delhi, March 19 : Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC) would democratize e-commerce and will protect small businesses by granting them equal opport ty, on Minister of Commerce and Industry, Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution and Textiles Piyush Goyal said on Saturday. He was virtually addressing the fifth edition of the annual Launchpad-The Entrepreneurship Summit organized by BITS, Pilani. Referring to Startups as the innovation engine for the country, he said the country is the 3rd largest startup ecosystem in the world and noted that in 5 years, the number of startups registered with DPIIT had gone up from 500 to more than 65,000 and there were more than 90 corns in the nation. Underscoring that entrepreneurship is all about disruption and change, he outlined many disruptions India has been witnessing across the board. Speaking of the great leaps India was taking in areas like fintech, agritech and marketplaces, he said, ”We must aspire to make IT and associated sector a trillion-dollar industry.” The Minister said that India was leading in building Digital Public Infrastructure and added that the penetration of smartphones and low cost of data has laid the foundation for disruptive innovation at scale. With digital infrastructure like IndiaStack, Healthstack, Logistics Stack, CoWIN, the next trillion-dollar companies can be created in India, he said. He expressed confidence that the startups of today would be the leaders of tomorrow and asked young entrepreneurs to help this country attain higher levels of prosperity and meet the aspirations of a billion plus citizens who are still looking to be stakeholders in our progress and prosperity through deep innovation. AKM SHK1722
