CAIT urges Union Commerce Ministry to ban e-commerce festive sales due to FDI policy violation

The Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT) has demanded for a ban on festival sales by the two e-commerce major - Amazon and Flipkart. The confederation hassaid that the e-commerce giants are violating the norms for foreign direct investment (FDI) by carrying out festival sales.

has requested the Union Commerce Minister, Piyush Goyal to look into the violation of the FDI policy and also urged to impose a ban on the declared festival sales. It also urged the government to institute an investigation into the business models of these companies.

"CAIT Secretary General Praveen Khandelwal strongly opposed the statements of Amazon and Flipkart that appeared in media couple of days back that they empower the sellers on their respective platforms to decide the prices and offer their choice of selection to customers at the prices they deem fit and offer best value of their products to consumers.

CAIT pointed out that as per the FDI policy, the key provision is 100% FDI is allowed in the e-commerce marketplace model and under which e-commerce companies can act only a technical platforms. The policy clearly says that e-commerce entities will not influence the prices directly or indirectly and shall maintain a level playing field.