Break the Compliance Burden

Published on: April 30, 2025

3 Compliance Challenges, 2 Sins and 1 Point Agenda towards Ease of Doing Business

We all want India to be a USD 5 trillion economy. The current slowdown in the economy needs some strong reform measures. Understanding the challenges is the first step before identifying the solutions.

India is not an easy place to do business. The Make-in-India initiative is a strong component of raising growth and is focused on making India a global manufacturing hub. However, setting up a manufacturing facility in India is heavily front-loaded with getting permissions, licenses, registrations, and consent orders. The gestation period stretches to many months, creating uncertain go-live dates, serious cost overruns, and unpredictable outcomes.

Clearances are required at every stage such as:

• Purchase of land
• Registration of property
• Connection of electricity and water
• Environmental clearance
• Permissions from the factory inspector and pollution control boards

Once successfully established, scores of acts, thousands of compliances, and hundreds of annual filings become applicable. For the Make-in-India initiative to be successful, establishing and running a manufacturing company in India needs to be re-imagined.

India’s regulatory landscape leaves companies grappling with 69,233 compliances and 6,618 filings. To top that, there are more than 2,500 regulatory updates in a year. Handling this regulatory complexity coming from the Centre, State, and local governments is a challenge for every company. The multiplicity makes compliance, deterrence, and enforcement almost impossible. Administrative overhead increases due to duplicate filings, register maintenance, and conflicting requirements.

Needless to say, small companies with limited resources find that this regulatory cholesterol acts as an effective barrier to growth and scale.

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3 Fundamental Challenges

1. Manual Tracking:
   Most companies manage compliances manually through spreadsheets and emails.

2. Lack of Legal Update Access:
   Many companies don’t even have a complete list of applicable compliances, making it extremely hard to track changes.

3. Insufficient In-House Expertise:
   A lack of training and knowledge leads to poor understanding and execution of compliance requirements.

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The 2 Sins of Compliance

• Sins of Omission

  • Missed filings
  • Incomplete documentation
  • Outdated licenses and registrations

• Sins of Commission

  • Incorrect calculations
  • Wrong forms
  • Delays in submission

As government scrutiny increases, these errors are becoming more costly than ever. Daily headlines show the consequences of non-compliance—penalties, closures, and legal action.

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1 Point Policy Agenda: Ease of Doing Business

If we want to achieve the $5 trillion economy goal, India must stop burdening businesses with paperwork.

While the Finance Minister rightly pointed out the need to improve tax revenues, the one-point policy agenda should be:

Implement the National Ease of Doing Business Policy
(Ref: TeamLease RegTech in Financial Express, 16th July 2019: "It’s time to change the way India does business")

The Key:

Simplification, Rationalization, and Digitisation of compliances to reduce the burden and unlock India's growth potential.

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