India, April 13 -- In early 2023, restaurant body National Restaurant Association of India (NRAI) was gung-ho about the Open Network For Digital Commerce (ONDC) and so were other retail associations, but two years later, ONDC does not seem to have moved the needle too much.

The buzz was so loud around ONDC in 2023 that various consumer and payments apps such as Paytm, Magicpin, Ola and others joined ONDC as a buyer app, looking to break into the Swiggy-Zomato duopoly.

But that noise is all but a whimper today. Amid a leadership crisis that has seen CEO Thampy Koshy stepping down this week after CBO Shireesh Joshi had quit earlier, ONDC is going through a transition. The number of orders reducing significantly since last year, the govern...