New Delhi, Mar 22 (IANS): The Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT) has praised FICCI President Uday Shankar for taking a stand on FDI policy e-commerce.

"At the outset, we at CAIT appreciate you for standing up for Indian people and taking a clear stand by demanding clarifications in FDI policy in e-commerce for enhancing transparency and its strict implementation in letter and spirit by each player, be it foreign or Indian, big or small," CAIT said in a letter to Uday Shankar.

"Uday ji, your letter to DPIIT with a clear stand, raises your stature to a statesman who has courage to stand for Indians and Indian industry. More than 8.5 crore members of CAIT and their families would remain indebted for such a strong support coming from FICCI under your leadership," it added.

"CAIT, being encouraged by the strong support from FICCI for the smaller merchants and people of our country, is now expecting similar support from Uday Kotak, President, CII, Vineet Agarwal, President, ASSOCHAM, Sanjay Aggrwal, President PHDCCI and other associations like NASSCOM, IAMAI, etc. we are sure that saner counsel will prevail upon them and we together can bring reality into the vision of Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi of 'vocal on local' and 'Atmanirbhar Bharat'," it added.

Inaction by the authorities on the blatant violation of FDI policy in the e-commerce sector has already mortgaged the livelihood of over 40 crore citizens to the foreign e-commerce behemoths. More regretfully certain sections in our country are acting as stooges serving the colonising power, CAIT said.

Major e-commerce companies have scant respect to Indian laws, rules and regulations, and have made a joke to the country's marketplace model of e-commerce allowed for these foreign e-commerce platforms. They are behaving like 'cowboys' in India for far too long and their business model persists with gross malpractices despite several public warnings by Piyush Goyal, Minister of Commerce & Industry from time to time.

"We cannot allow the few foreign companies to treat our country as a banana republic where they can get impunity to flout the laws and regulations," CAIT said in the letter.