New Delhi, Jul 5 (IANS): The government's Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC) platform on Wednesday announced that it is now Beta live in five more cities, including -- Mumbai, Delhi-NCR (including Noida, Gurgaon and Faridabad), Chennai, Hyderabad and Kolkata.

Along with Bengaluru and Meerut, which were chosen as Beta live in September 2022 and December 2022, respectively, the network is now

accessible to buyers (consumers) and sellers in these additional five cities.

With this, consumers will now be able to purchase from the sellers on the ONDC network through four active buyer applications -- Paytm, Mystore,

Spice Money, and Magicpin.

“We hope that with this Beta announcement, more and more businesses will be inclined to join us, benefiting from an early-mover advantage.

Additionally, as we touch more consumer territories, it also gives us the insights and opportunities to improve the network,” T Koshy, MD and CEO,

ONDC, said in a statement.

Presently, the network has over 40,000 sellers live in more than 200 cities, out of which 18,000+ sellers operate from these five cities.

ONDC had its alpha rollout in April 2022 in five cities to test live transactions with a closed group of sellers and buyers while gradually

expanding its footprint.

The main objective of ONDC to go Beta live is to allow consumers to experience the open network for the first time, collect real-time feedback

and also test the network at scale before the pan-India rollout.