The new foreign direct investment (FDI) rules for the e-commerce industry, which were announced on December 26th, have triggered a debate.

According to the new guidelines, e-commerce companies with foreign investment cannot sell products of related entities. They are also prohibited from mandating any company to sell its products exclusively on their platforms.

Industry sources have reacted saying that the new rules threaten the entire business model -- Flipkart has called for a broad market driven framework. Mukesh Aghi, president and CEO of US-India Strategic Partnership Forum (USISPF) shared his views and readings on the new guidelines.

Aghi said that sudden changes in a policy without consultative process is not a healthy process.

He further said that any policy changes has to keep customer in mind because customer is the king.

“I think the concern is that the small kirana stores will get impacted then let’s have a discussion with the investors such as Amazon and Walmart. How do they manage supply chain scenario and the win-win scenario for both parties,” he added.

“It is important that we sit-down with the policymakers, try to understand what are they trying to achieve here and how we can support that as we move forward. The key thing for us is to keep in mind that the customer should benefit through the whole process,” he further added.