A blueprint for India’s ‘regulatory stack

Source: The post “A blueprint for India’s ‘regulatory stack’” has been created, based on “A blueprint for India’s ‘regulatory stack’” published in “The Hindu Businessline” on 8 November 2025. A blueprint for India’s ‘regulatory stack.

UPSC Syllabus: GS Paper 2 – Governance, Transparency & E-Governance

Introduction: As India deepens its digital governance ecosystem, the next frontier of reform lies in regulatory transformation. The proposed Regulatory Stack (RegStack) aims to make regulation predictable, transparent, and humane, turning compliance from a maze into a mirror that reflects a state that is trustworthy, efficient, and ethical. Conceived as a centrally sponsored digital infrastructure, RegStack can harmonize governance functions across ministries, municipalities, and regulators, mirroring the success of India’s Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI) such as Aadhaar, UPI, and Jan Dhan.

Need for Regulatory Reform

1. India’s regulatory landscape remains fragmented, paper-heavy, and discretionary, especially in local governance (construction permits, property registrations, waste management, etc.).
2. Bureaucratic opacity and procedural friction increase delays, corruption, and rent-seeking.
3. RegStack seeks to digitally transform the compliance ecosystem, ensuring that regulation is applied uniformly, verifiably, and transparently, reducing dependence on physical verification and subjective approvals.

Core Objectives of RegStack

1. Simplify compliance: Make regulation easy to apply, track, and verify digitally.
2. Enhance accountability: Ensure transparency and auditability of every regulatory transaction.
3. Reduce friction: Limit discretionary power, making governance predictable and impartial.
4. Build trust: Move from a “presumption of suspicion” to a “presumption of honesty.”

Key Components and Structure

RegStack is envisioned as a four-layer interoperable digital architecture:

1. Identity & Authorisation Layer: Uses Aadhaar, PAN, and enterprise identifiers to authenticate citizens and firms across interactions.
2. Rule Engine Layer: Encodes legal and regulatory provisions into machine-readable logic, allowing automatic real-time compliance checks.
3. Data Exchange Layer: Enables ministries and local bodies to share verified data securely, preventing redundant documentation and ensuring auto-clearances once one agency approves.
4. Audit & Oversight Layer: Maintains immutable, traceable records of all regulatory actions, strengthening both accountability and transparency.

Implementation Strategy

• Pilot Phase: Begin with 100 municipal pilot cities, digitising select regulatory processes such as building plan approvals and vendor licensing. Implement in coordination with Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs and Ministry of Electronics and IT (MeitY).
• Mission Approach: Launch a RegStack Mission under MeitY to coordinate standards, technical support, and training. Gradually expand to high-compliance sectors like tourism, transport, and retail.
• Integration: Link RegStack with existing bodies such as pollution control boards, labour departments, and land registries for unified governance.

Philosophical Foundation

• Moves from “regulation through suspicion” to “regulation through compliance.”
• Trust becomes programmable—once compliance is verified digitally, regulators can focus on exceptional cases rather than routine checks.
• Encourages ethical governance where citizens and enterprises are presumed honest until proven otherwise.

 Advantages of RegStack

1. Transparency: Real-time data sharing reduces information asymmetry.
2. Predictability: Automated decisions minimise human discretion.
   Efficiency: Cuts the time and cost of compliance for citizens and enterprises.
3. Accountability: Immutable digital records deter corruption.
4. Interoperability: Integrates local and central regulations seamlessly.
5. Scalability: Can be extended to multiple sectors beyond municipalities.

Challenges and Concerns

1. Digital Exclusion: Smaller municipalities and citizens in rural areas may face access or literacy barriers.
2. Cybersecurity Risks: Centralised regulatory databases could become targets for breaches.
3. Institutional Resistance: Bureaucratic inertia may slow down digital adoption.
4. Algorithmic Bias: Automated systems could produce unfair outcomes without human oversight.
5. Capacity Constraints: Ministries need technically skilled staff to maintain and audit digital rule engines.
6. Ethical Oversight: Automation cannot fully replace human discretion in sensitive domains like health or the environment.

Way Forward

1. Phased Rollout: Begin with low-risk regulatory areas before expanding to complex sectors.
2. Build Capacity: Train officials, regulators, and local bodies in digital rule encoding and data governance.
3. Strengthen Cybersecurity: Ensure robust encryption, anonymisation, and data-sharing protocols.
4. Hybrid Oversight: Combine algorithmic processing with human supervision in high-stakes decisions.
5. Legal Coherence: Establish a National RegStack Secretariat to standardise frameworks and ensure inter-ministerial consistency.
6. Stakeholder Engagement: Include industry, citizens, and civil society in feedback loops to maintain transparency and trust.

Conclusion: The proposed RegStack represents the next major leap in India’s digital governance evolution, transforming regulation from a maze of discretion into a system of trust, transparency, and traceability. By digitising compliance, embedding ethics into code, and fostering accountable automation, RegStack can help India build a state that is confident, capable, and citizen-centric. The goal is not to reduce regulation but to refine it, making governance predictable, impartial, and humane in the digital age.

Question: Discuss how India’s proposed Regulatory Stack (RegStack) can enhance transparency, accountability, and efficiency in governance while reducing compliance burden.