e recentannouncement of Hindustan Lever indicates that soon all of its cosmetic line will be made available only on the net, with onecenter in each city acting as demonstration/guidance center. The country needs to get its legal, legislative, regulatory, infrastructure and manpower ready for ebusiness. We already seesome of this readiness, and hence, India is ready to boom in ebusiness. While the air of optimism persists, the fact remainsthat in India Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) has not really taken off. Therefore, doubts persist whether corporate andgovernment in specific will adopt and accept this as quickly as is made out. One of the main reasons is the high entry cost ofEDI because of which companies fight shy of trying out. The ratification of financial transactions reconciled without paper via the internet by the Reserve Bank of India. A critical issue,it is expected to be resolved once the government passes the Electronic Support Act and the Information Technology Bill.Institutions such as RBI and SEBI are considering various ways to make usage of electronic systems mandatory for areassuch as interbank settlements, payment of dividends etc. These bills also contain a comprehensive range of provisions thatare expected to usher in e-business in India. To add to this government incentive has been minimal in the past. However, the fact that EDI-related issues are beingaddressed by the government, is again indicative of the change in the offing. For instance, government agencies like ports aremoving to exchanging documents through EDI and are planning a complete move to accept documents in only EDI. Similarly,a major pilot project in the auto industry was successfully completed last year by ACMA (Auto Component ManufacturersAssociation), paving the way for its wider acceptance. Welcome to the new invasion of technology in the Indian banking system. In developing countries like India with a vast majority of the population li...
