DailyPost 2986
REGULATORY PARALYSIS
The general administration governance mechanism was running short of providing effective regulation, supervision and direction to a large number of specialised areas of our functioning, on which depended the growth engine of the nation. Few specialist regulators have always been there as a part of legal mandate like RBI but many had to be created in the interest of the new requirements, which were being thrown up. Take for example the Telecom or the Insurance sector and it goes on up to real estate. SEBI came into being by an act of parliament in 1992.
Added to the regulators there has been a new breed of tribunals and adjudications agencies were created, both to relieve the regular courts of that additional burden and also to provide area specific resolutions, that for sure would be more worthwhile. The vacancies in these tribunals and large numbers of them not being functional has been commented upon by the highest court of this land. Non-fructification of this need also in some way means the regulatory course is not being taken to its logical conclusion.
Coming back to prima donnas for the specialised regulatory regime, the general practice is that it turns out to be another government office, when the actual requirement is to play a proactive role and be the torch bearer in that field. Take the case of telecommunications, insurance or any other area, the path defining work is nowhere to be seen. It seems to be some advisory here or there or some new bland regulation being put in place. Are real experts with futuristic decision making capabilities employed for this purpose? That does not seem to be the case.
The end result is that we have high sounding bodies with little or no impact. We have slowly reached a stage which can be termed as Regulatory Paralysis. The directions and decisions are long delayed, if it were to happen in a large number of happening areas of the nation. Even in old conventional areas we face immense challenges, take the example of food, or the regulator for fire safety measures. There are also areas where people have nearly forgotten about the regulator.
A REGULATORY PARALYSIS CAN THROW ANY COUNTRY OUT OF GEAR.
Sanjay Sahay
Have a nice evening.