Overseas e-com cos violated Indian laws: Goyal

COMMERCE and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal has hit out at foreign e-commerce companies that are violating Indian laws.

"Unfortunately, many of these large e-commerce companies have come into India and very blatantly violated the laws of the land, in more ways than one," Goyal said at an event by the Stanford India Policy and Economics Club.

Goyal charged the American e-commerce companies with arrogance and using capital to the detriment of small shopkeepers in India. "I read several engagements with these large companies, particularly the American ones, and I can see a little bit of an arrogance of their being big and their ability to finance large amounts of money in the initial stages to try and capture the Indian market or larger part of the Indian market, particularly certain products, to the detriment of mom and pop stores," he added.

"And I think it's very unfair that just because they are large, they have large pools of capital..., they should be allowed to get away with hurting domestic interests," Goyal said.