Amitabh Kant calls for easing regulatory burden on businesses

Mumbai: India’s former G-20 Sherpa Amitabh Kant on Thursday flagged regulatory compliance burdens impacting Indian enterprises, and rued that the ‘socialist mindset’ continues in the country.

“India’s regulatory environment places a very high compliance burden. The British Raj was in many ways replaced by the licence Raj, and our socialist mindset still continues,” Kant said, speaking at an Excellence Enablers event here. He said there is a need to “unshackle India’s enterprises from excessive regulation and a very high compliance burden”, the former bureaucrat, who has also served as the chief executive of the government think-tank Niti Aayog for six years, said.

Regulations were highlighted as a key area needing changes by Kant, who pointed out that regulations need to be reshaped “into a shield for trust and transparency, not a sword for arbitrary control.”