If your e-commerce company has a complaint and no one is resolving it, you can probably move the Prime Minister’s Office

E-commerce players can send their complaints to the highest levels, even the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO). Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s office is looking into the complaints filed by the e-commerce companies on several issues. The top officials held a meeting at PMO and discussed a range of issues that included taxation, marketplace curbs and the offline-online conflict.

"There are a number of issues confronting the sector, including foreign investment, taxation, the idea was to take a stock,” a government official told ET.

The government has set up a committee to review the ecommerce policy and issues faced by companies, under NITI Aayog Chief Executive Officer Amitabh Kant. The PMO came into scene after the e-commerce companies approached several departments with many issues and in the absence of a single nodal ministry.

Taxation has emerged as a major irritant for the ecommerce sector along with restrictions imposed by state governments.

The NITI Aayog committee is expected to submit its report in a month's time, spelling out a clear framework and bringing about predictability in the overall sectoral policy. Morgan Stanley estimates India's ecommerce market will swell to $119 billion by 2020.

Offline retailers also met the Finance Minister Arun Jaitley to raise the issue of unfair competition from the ecommerce players via discount that they call predatory discounting.

A separate entry tax has been imposed on goods sold via online portals by many states like Gujarat so as to save the offline retailer’ sale.

The government however, sees ecommerce as having a tremendous potential for job creation by providing market access to small entrepreneurs and businesses that would find setting up physical retail establishments too expensive.