E- Commerce The Highway To Growth

Many entrepreneurs from the Northeast are now using online market places to sell their produce so that it reaches the nooks and crannies of the nation and beyond.

- Bhairavi Jani

For my first visit to Dimapur, the commercial capital of Nagaland, over a decade ago, I took a train, the famous BG Express from Guwahati to Dimapur. Like many train journeys in India, this was no different. There were families trying to keep together in the crowd, food vendors running around selling all kinds of savouries and there were luggage porters running with stacks of luggage. But at the end of the platform there was a long queue of people standing with cargo. I had seen stations with cargo piled up, but I had never seen such a long queue of people with cargo. When I enquired, they said they were waiting to book cargo, hoping for some last-minute space available on the train. Some of them said they came every day and took a chance, some had yet not managed to connect their parcels even after coming every day for a week and some just looked exasperated and frustrated with the whole process.