Rein in corrupt practices in e-commerce sector

The period of Covid-19 pandemic triggered a boom in online business. Advertisements of products ranging from food items to other essential items began to flood the social media, especially Facebook as people were mostly confined to their houses. As everything was shut down, online business became a part of our daily life that had never ever been seen before.

If there was no corona, possibly the country would see the rise in online business a bit later. Whatever the reason, the point is online sales soared and so did the e-commerce sector. A section of people, mainly shoppers and teenagers, got very enthusiastic about it. The e-commerce firms too began to offer business to people. Very often it was done unethically and without following proper norms.

Surprisingly, such a big issue escaped the government’s eyes. The digital outlets, if you would like to call them, grabbing the opportunity of being under the radar of the government agencies concerned began to play with the fates of millions of people. At least a dozen e-commerce firms got involved in embezzlement, money laundering and widespread irregularities.

By the time the government began to take active interest in the matter they had already done what was par for course in absence of monitoring, penalty and punishment. Names of some of the top e-commerce firms grabbed the spotlight. Cases were filed against them and they were reined in but wailing and weeping of the victims who lost their hard-earned money have not yet stopped.

In our country realization comes much later and by the time damage is done. Though late, the government is likely to take a harsh decision on those firms. The Business Post on December 24 ran a report on e-commerce sector. The report said the government had prepared a draft of a law to regulate the industry with provisions of fines and jail terms.

With no separate law the Central Digital Commerce Cell of the Commerce Ministry monitor the sector. After the law ‘Digital Commerce Act 2023’ is enacted the country will have a separate law to regulate the e-commerce sector. Senior Commerce Secretary Tapan Kanti Ghosh told The Business Post: “The government is working to prevent these crimes. However, due to the complexity of some laws, concrete steps couldn’t be taken. This is why this new digital commerce law is being prepared.”

But he didn’t name-check what the complexities were. When a new law is enacted there is always complexity of this type or that. No law is flawless. The law becomes flawless in the course of time and in the process of its implementation. Whatever it is, at least a law is going to be enacted. A provision in the new law, likely to come into effect soon, says a company must be a registered within the prescribed time to run a digital business.

One stringent aspect of the law is no company can go into any kind of transaction with banks, mobile banking institutions and payment gateway companies without being registered. We think that this should be the case with any other companies. If this provision can be carried out effectively there will be little room for the digital platforms to run their business evading the rule of law.

The way the government is being hard on e-commerce sector the same way it should deal with other types of companies as it is only the country where business of any kind can be run without being registered with the agency concerned of the government. If in every sector such laws are in place, we hope, regularity and discipline can easily be executed. When no organization can escape the rule of laws corruption, irregularities and other forms of crimes will then considerably come down.