GRAMEEN E- STORES

Subject : Governance

Context : Amazon, Walmart seek tie-ups, IT Min cites ‘independence’ to reject offers

Concept :

In an effort to enter domestic rural markets, global retail giant Walmart India had approached the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) with a proposal to buy out the entire chain of 1.4 lakh Grameen e-stores run and managed by the Common Service Centres (CSC)
E-Grameen Store is a brainchild of the 400,000-strong Common Service Centres (CSCs) network under the Ministry of Electronics and IT, which also collaborated with nearby ration depots to provide essentials at people’s doorsteps during the first few phases of the lockdown.
Under the model, a village-level entrepreneur of every CSC creates a personalised app depending on the need and availability of goods for his surrounding areas, and delivers those to customers.
The government has collaborated with ecommerce company Migrocer to create a master app which has a database of 80,000 products.
The goods can be procured either directly from farmers or self-help groups or from nearby retailers, wholesalers or supermarkets.