Panel Discussion on Rethinking Regulators : Strategic Asset for Business Growth

A view of the intent audience listening to the discussions 


From Left to Right

1. Professor Subhomoy Bhattacharjee (Professor of Practice & Director at CRG)

2. Prof (Dr) C Raj Kumar (Founding Vice Chancellor, Jindal Global University)

3. Dr. Amitendu Palit (Senior Research Fellow and Research Lead (ISAS), National University of Singapore

4. Mr. S.K.G. Rahate, IAS (Chairperson, Airports Economic Regulatory Authority, GOI) 

5. Mr. Randip Singh Jagpal (Member, PFRDA) 


A view of the keen discussions during the Seminar

Snapshot  of the distinguished audience
 

From Left to Right

1. Professor Avirup Bose (Associate Professor and Assistant Director, Centre for International Trade and Economics Laws, Jindal Global Law School).

2. Dr. Amitendu Palit (Senior Research Fellow and Research Lead (ISAS), National University of Singapore

3. Mr. S.K.G. Rahate, IAS (Chairperson, Airports Economic Regulatory Authority, GOI) 


Note on the session Rethinking Regulators: Strategic Asset for Business Growth

Experts from the government, from the regulators and from the academia including those from the OP Jindal University held a deep dive session on “Rethinking Regulators: Strategic Asset for Business Growth” on 12 June, 2025. 

At the intense session, experts discussed how some of the regulators have made the welcome transition from just checking boxes to enforce compliance by individual entities to principle based regulations. This has allowed the regulators to develop pricing decisions that suit the industry and serve the customers. This has helped them move away from being held hostage to managing the capital investment made by the business as the basis of pricing of services that helps the sector grow and keep costs low for the customers. 

As one of the speakers put it succinctly “When there is a natural monopoly there is always this risk of dominance and misuse of the dominant position. So the government has to have a regulator for those sectors.”

On the same theme, another expert pointed out that to make the transition to  the principle based regulation it is important to make a judgement call about the quality of regulators. “This has not always proved to be a very effective example in India's case”, was the opinion in this context. 

Only if these conditions are met can the regulators be regarded as “strategic assets”. The reverse question is if they are not strategic assets, then do they become liabilities? It was also debated that globally there is a tendency to shift away from regulators. “There's no denying this and one of the most approximate and acceptable reasons for that is the cost of funding regulators”.

In this context the recent announcement made in the Union Budget for a relook at the regulators presumably means moving towards a light touch approach. But then “what exactly is a light touch approach or the feather touch approach and how those should be balanced will be some very interesting issues to develop”. 

For instance, some regulators are examining the nature of investments made by business in the states to figure out if the money is going into the extraction of minerals or whether they are going for the development f infrastructure. It is difficult to judge whether such analysis would be classified as a light touch regulation or an invasive one. But when the regulator sets charges those have to be reasonable which means a fair amount of details from the sector operators have to be extracted to arrive at a fair decision. 

These raise the issue of funding for the regulator and questions on whether the consumers gets to know how much of the charges she pays, is also used to finance the regulators. 

The closed door session was attended by over 50 guests and a most distinguished panel of experts at the JGU International Academy at the Taj Mansingh Hotel in New Delhi.