Flipkart to invest heavily in technology, supply chain, says CEO Kalyan Krishnamurthy

Walmart-owned Flipkart on Wednesday launched Flipkart Samarth, an initiative that aims to help India’s artisans and weavers leverage the reach of the country’s burgeoning e-commerce sector. Flipkart, with its rich base of over 150 million users, will give the artisan community access to national market and boost employment. Flipkart Group CEO Kalyan Krishnamurthy talks to FE’s Asmita Dey on the sidelines of the event. Excerpts:

The company believes that the Samarth initiative is aligned with the government’s vision to create more jobs. How many jobs are you looking to create through this initiative?
There are five partners whom we have on board already for this programme. There are about 30,000 artisans already associated with these five partners and we are in discussions with many more partners. We should not be targeting these things. When you have a cost like this, it should not be target-driven. I think these 30,000 sellers themselves will create a few lakh jobs.