Banking - Yojana

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introduction of Internet
connectivity in the country in 1989.
As such, E-commerce in India is of
recent origin and is still at infant
stage. Historically, Rediff-on-thenet,
one of India's leading online
services, set up India's first Ecommerce
on August 13, 1998.
Then, India entered the age of Ecommerce
the day the government
deregulated the In ternet service
provider (ISP) policy in November
1998. Since then, there is no
, • looking back and the coun try is
proliferating in Internet. In fact, the
rate of growth of penetration of
, Internet has been spectacular. It
took radio 50 years to have 50
million owners, T.v. 16 years and
personal computers 1'7years. But it
has taken Internet only 4 years to
reach that figure after the inven tion
ofWWW an browsers. As of May 31,
2002, there were 0.95 million
Internet connections in the country
with 3.25 million Internet users.
According to NASSCOM, these
figures will reach to 6 and 16 million
respectively by March 31, 2003.
Nonetheless, Internet penetration
in India (0.5 percent of population)
is far less as compared to 50 percent
in Singapore, for example.
As per preliminary findings of
the NASSCOM survey, the total
volume ofE-commerce transactions
in India was about Rs. 4,500 million
) in the year 1999-2000. Out of this
volume, aboutRs. 500 million were
• contributed by retail Internet or
'\ "'business-to customer transactions,
and about Rs. 4,000 million was
contributed by business-to-business
transactions. According to
NASSCOM survey; with
improvemen t in telecom
infrastructure, increase in P.C.
penetration could lead to Rs. 15,000
million ofE-commerce transactions
in India by 2001-2002. Recently, the
government has opened the gates
further for foreign companies by
YOJANAJuly 2002
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allowing 100% foreign direct
investment (FDI) in E-commerce
and removing the export obligation
for consumer goods industries
covering a basket of 22 products
such as cars, refrigerators, washing
machines, colourTVs, wines, liquor
and food products. Thus, Ecommerce
is showing every sign of
continuing to expand in the
country.
Uneve'n
It is worth mentioning that the
expansion of E-commerce in India
so far has been uneven
concentrating in a few metropolitan
cities, namely, Bangalore,
Hyderabad, Mumbai and Delhi.
The common man residing in rural
and remote areas of the country is,
however, still unaware of happening
in information technology sector
and thus, E-commerce
phenomenon. Obviously, much
progress cannot be achieved until
the country's vast rural and remote
sector is not brought within the
folds of Internet. Hence, hitherto
untouched rural sector by Internet
so far offers a greatpotential for Ecommerce
in India. The former
U.S. President Mr Bill Clinton
during his visit to India in March
2000 also hailed India's remarkable
progress in IT sector and remarked
that India has the poten tial to
become the world's largest
economy using the power of
Internet to tap its vast potential
lying dormant in its rural and
remote areas.
Entrepreneurship development
usually goes with development of
small-scale enterprises. Like
elsewhere in the world, small
enterprises playa vibrant and vital
role in our coun try as well by
contributing significantly to the
national production, employment,
and exports. This is more so in case
of rural and remote areas like North
Eastern Region ofIndia. Given the
kingpin role of small enterprises
worldwide, it is increasingly being
realized that if small sector gets left
behind in the information, then the
whole economy gets behind.
Marketing being one of the major
problems faced by small
enterprises, these enterprises
cannot have the luxury to adopt a
wait and watch attitude in the
matter of marketing. Late adoptio~
ofE-commerce will adversely affect
the small enterprises today and
tomorrow.
It is with this realization; small
enterprises worldwide are turning
to the use of modern (marketing)
technology to compete with their
big brothers-medium and large size
enterprises. According to a survey
conducted by the Yankallovick
Partners Inc., 90 percent small
enterprises in US, 81 percent in
Singapore, 80 percent in Spain and
Italy, and 70 percent in Ireland are
using wired technology in their
(marketing) operations.
The information technology in
the form of E-commerce has
opened up a great deal of potential
for developing small enterprises in
the field of marketing. The unique
opportunities E-commerce offers to
small enterprise are to:
Access to new Markets: Ecommerce
enables the marketer to
have access to markets anywhere in
the globe hitherto untapped .
Lower Various Costs: Ecommerce
can minimize inventory
costs by adoptingjust-in-time (JIT)
system and enhancing the firm's
ability to forecast demands more
accurately. It has been found that
both customer and after sale
services account for upto onetenth
(10 percent) of operating
costs. But, by putting these services
on-line under E-commerce, these
costs get reduced, and
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