Arvind Gupta, the independent director of Open Network for Digital Commerce, has stepped down from his post, making him the most recent high-ranking official to leave the government-supported e-commerce network.
Gupta’s departure last month comes after senior executives Shireesh Joshi, the chief business officer, non-executive chairperson RS Sharma, and managing director and chief executive Thampy Koshy left.
An advisory council and a board of directors oversee ONDC. The board consists of independent directors, shareholders, government nominations, and founding members.
“I was the first independent director of ONDC and one of its founding members. The head and co-founder of the Digital India Foundation, Arvind Gupta, stated, “I decided not to continue after my three-year term as an independent director was up.”
Following Gupta’s retirement, ONDC now has three independent directors: Ritesh Tiwari, executive director of finance & IT and chief financial officer of Hindustan Unilever Limited; Adil Zainulbhai, chairwoman of the Capacity Building Commission; and Anjali Bansal, founder and chairperson of Avaana Capital.
The network registered 4.34 million retail orders in April, but in May, that number dropped by 6.2% to 4.07 million. In a similar vein, on-network logistics orders decreased from 2.41 million in April to 2.32 million in May.
