Nandan Nilekani, at 66, has one more audacious objective. The high-profile businessman is assisting Prime Minister Narendra Modi in the creation of an open technology network aimed at levelling the playing field for small businesses in India’s fragmented but rapidly rising $1 trillion retail markets.
After co-founding software behemoth Infosys Ltd., he became a billionaire and led a massive government programme to provide biometric identity for India’s almost 1.4 billion citizens.
Its claimed goal is to provide a free internet marketplace where traders and consumers can buy and sell anything from 23-cent detergent bars to $1,800 plane tickets. But its implicit goal is to eventually rein in Amazon.com Inc. and Walmart Inc.-owned Flipkart, whose online dominance has scared small businesses and the millions of kirana stores that make up the country’s retail backbone.
The kirana shops are terrified of an uncertain future as the two global giants poured a combined $24 billion into India and seized 80% of the online retail sector with aggressive discounts and promotion of favoured vendors.
