The Centre for Social and Economic Progress (CSEP) hosted a seminar titled “Decoding India’s Quality Control Orders” on Tuesday, October 14, 2025.

The seminar began with Opening Remarks by the Chair and Moderator, Laveesh Bhandari, President, CSEP. This was followed by a presentation by Prerna Prabhakar, Fellow, CSEP. Special Remarks were delivered by Sanjeet Singh, Senior Advisor, NITI Aayog.

This was followed by a discussion with Shaunak Rungta, Director, Vardhan Group; Arun Goyal, Director, Academy of Business Studies (ABS); and Anil Bhardwaj, Secretary General, Federation of Indian Micro and Small & Medium Enterprises (FISME).

About the event

India continues to lag behind its Asian peers in manufacturing competitiveness. One of the critical reasons for this gap is India’s relatively high tariff barriers. This protectionist approach has intensified in recent years. Tariffs began to rise sharply in 2018, accompanied by a sustained increase in the use of anti-dumping duties to curb the inflow of cheap imports. In parallel, the government has significantly expanded the use of Quality Control Orders (QCOs), particularly since 2020. These orders mandate compliance with specified product standards, with consignments subject to testing and certification by the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS). The surge in QCOs has been remarkable, with their number increasing from 88 in 2019 to 765 by 2024, a nearly eightfold rise. Additionally, another 100 QCOs are currently in the pipeline as of August 2025.

Against this backdrop, this seminar discussed the key findings of CSEP’s recent working paper titled “Decoding India’s Quality Control Orders.” The paper makes two important contributions. First, it constructs a comprehensive database mapping existing QCOs to their corresponding Harmonised System (HS) codes. Second, it empirically examines the impact of QCOs on India’s trade flows in affected products. The analysis reveals that while QCOs reduce imports, particularly of intermediate inputs, they do not lead to sustained export gains, raising critical questions about their effectiveness as a tool for enhancing competitiveness.

The seminar also explored policy options to address quality concerns without compromising the competitiveness of India’s manufacturing sector.

Special Remarks

Sanjeet Singh

Sanjeet Singh is an Indian Revenue Service officer of the 1991 batch. He has served at various positions in the Income Tax Department and presently hold the rank of Chief Commissioner, Income Tax.

He is holding the position of Senior Advisor with the National Institution for Transforming India (NITI Aayog), since June 2022. He looks at policy issues related to Trade & Commerce as well as Economic & Finance and Tax Policy and Reform, Disinvestment of Central Public Sector Enterprises (CPSE) related issues. He is also the Coordinator for NITI Aayog for India’s G-20 Presidency-related matters. He is also charged with all matters relating to International Cooperation and Strategic Economic Dialogue conducted with various countries.

He is coordinating the efforts of the Consultative Group on Tax Policy Reforms at NITI Aayog and actively engages with stakeholders from the government, tax policy experts, tax payer and industry bodies and other stakeholders.

He is also engaged in efforts at facilitating the flow of long term sustainable Infrastructure finance into India through structured engagements with multilateral and bilateral institutions.

He is passionate about sustainability and his work at NITI Aayog involves developing a Vision of India @ 2047 towards which India will emerge as an advanced nation on a rapid inclusive growth trajectory, based on green pathways of development.

He is a postgraduate in Physics from St. Stephens College, Delhi. He holds a Post Graduate Diploma in Public Administration from l’Ecole Nationale d’Adminstration, Paris, France. He also holds a Bachelor’s degree in Law.

He has worked with various Government departments in addition to his parent Department of Income Tax, including the Department of Commerce, and the Ministry of Rural Development. He has also served as Advisor at the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India, TRAI.

Chair and Moderator

Laveesh Bhandari

Laveesh Bhandari is President and a Senior Fellow at CSEP.  Dr Bhandari has published widely on subjects related to sustainable livelihoods, industrial, economic, and social reforms in India, economic geography, and financial inclusion. He received his PhD in economics from Boston University for which he was awarded the Best Thesis in International Economics. He has taught economics at Boston University and IIT Delhi. Apart from applied economics research, Dr Bhandari has built, seeded, and exited from three companies in the research, analytics, and digital domains, including Indicus Analytics, a leading economic research firm. Currently, he is conducting research on issues of inclusion, India’s energy transition, and how it will impact the government as well as the economy.

Panellists

Shaunak Rungta

Shaunak Rungta is a young 28-year-old Chartered Accountant and first-class Commerce graduate from the University of Calcutta, with a professional journey spanning diverse domains of finance, taxation, and industrial entrepreneurship. He began his career in the Insolvency and Bankruptcy domain with Grant Thornton, where he was closely involved in the resolution of major stressed steel companies in the Bengal region, including Ramsarup Industries and Adhunik Metals. His work contributed to critical turnarounds in a sector deeply impacted by financial distress.

Following this, Shaunak worked with Reliance Industries in Mumbai in their Indirect Taxation practice, honing his expertise in GST and complex tax compliances at a corporate scale. Transitioning from corporate roles to entrepreneurship, he embarked on his own venture by establishing a stainless steel pipe manufacturing unit, bringing his industry knowledge into hands-on production management.

Shaunak is actively engaged in policy advocacy for the MSME sector, serving as a Core-Committee Member of FISME India and participating in the MSME panel of CII Rajasthan. His interest in steel sector dynamics has also led to his association with the Global Trade Research Initiative (GTRI), contributing to research and policy inputs in the steel industry. His work reflects a unique blend of finance, policy, and manufacturing expertise.

Arun Goyal

Arun Goyal is the Director of the Academy of Business Studies (ABS), a New Delhi–based trade think tank comprising a 12-member research team. An economist, trade policy expert, and editor, he brings over four decades of experience in the areas of trade research, customs duties, and non-tariff barriers. Mr Goyal holds an MBA from Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad. He also serves as the Director of ABS News Service, a New Delhi–based trade think tank and information provider.

Mr Goyal has authored and edited several seminal works on India’s trade policy, including Easy Reference Customs Tariff (51st Edition, 2025), Customs Manual, and WTO in the New Millennium.

His notable contributions include reorganising India’s Export and Import Policy on the Harmonised System (HS) for the Ministry of Commerce; developing CUSTADA (Customs Tariff Database) and NONTADA (Non-Tariff Database) for the Ministry of Finance; and creating India’s first Non-Tariff Barriers Database (for India and Sri Lanka).

Mr Goyal has been recognised internationally, having been invited as an International Visitor by the U.S. Government in 1997, and honoured as Honorary Lieutenant Governor of Oklahoma. He has also served as a member of the Task Force on Transaction Costs (DGFT) and the Rajasthan Chief Minister’s Livelihood Mission.

Anil Bhardwaj 

Anil Bhardwaj is Secretary General of Federation of Indian Micro and Small & Medium Enterprises (FISME), New Delhi. He is a Private Sector Development and Trade Professional.

He holds a Masters in International Trade. His specializations include industrial and trade policy issues and framework conditions of promotional and regulatory environment for SMEs and Market Access issues of MSMEs Multilateral Trade Negotiations (such as WTO) and at Regional Trade Agreements. He has advised and worked on several SME development projects supported by Govt. of India, ILO, UNCTAD, UNIDO, UNDP, UNESCAP, ITC & UNCTAD (Geneva), UNDP, ADB, Asian Productivity Council (Tokyo), EU, DFID and GIZ among others. He has authored books and guides for SMEs. He writes regularly on Indian MSME issues. He is a Governing Board member of Entrepreneurship Development Institute (EDI), Ahmedabad.

Presenter

Prerna Prabhakar

Prerna Prabhakar is a Fellow at the Centre for Social and Economic Progress (CSEP). Prerna’s research primarily focuses on trade and industrial policies, and competitiveness. Prior to joining CSEP, she worked with the Council on Energy Environment and Water (CEEW) where she focused on understanding the linkages between sustainability and international trade.  Prerna has also worked with the National Council of Applied Economic Research (NCAER) on external sector issues, investment potential for Indian States/Union Territories as well as land policy matters. She has also worked on research projects with the University of Delhi, South Asian Network for Development and Environmental Economics (SANDEE), Research and Information System for Developing Countries (RIS) and Centre for WTO Studies at the Indian Institute of Foreign Trade (IIFT).

She has completed her PhD from the Department of Business Economics, University of Delhi. She has a postgraduate degree in Economics from TERI School of Advanced Studies (TSAS). She has published her research in Indian and international journals including Environmental Economics and Policy Studies. She regularly contributes opinion pieces to leading newspapers.

All content reflects the individual views of the speakers. The Centre for Social and Economic Progress (CSEP) does not hold an institutional view on any subject.

Please contact Gurmeet Kaur at GKaur@csep.org for general queries and Ayesha Manocha at AManocha@csep.org for media queries.

In the Media

Why MSME reps are resisting govt QCOs, calling them ‘protectionist’ rather than quality control tool