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Viet Nam adapts, India caps
Bhuvana Anand, Shubho Roy, Pranjal Chandra, and Kaushiki Kaushalendra | 25 March 2026 | Insights
Viet Nam’s working-hour reforms have allowed its factories to be 23% faster and 19% cheaper than India. Read to understand how greater flexibility in working-hour regulations contributed to this advantage, and what India can do to emerge at the head of the global manufacturing race.
The warehouse next door
Sargun Kaur and Bhuvana Anand | 11 February 2026 | Insights
Indian states inhibit dark-store density through land-use regulations. These regulations push dark stores away from neighbourhoods, increasing delivery distances and traffic exposure. Read to see how land-use reforms can improve rider safety than banning 10-minute delivery advertisement claims.
Colonial Clocks
Arjun Krishnan, Bhuvana Anand, and Pranjal Chandra | 22 January 2026 | Insights
British protectionism and the British Raj’s need to preserve order catalysed the first limits on working hours in India. Read the full piece to understand how inherited laws and lost sovereignty continue to chain India’s factories.
Markets without prices
Sargun Kaur | 07 January 2026 | Insights
Governments are subjecting third party markets to price caps. However, price caps may end up undermining third-party markets before they have a chance to deliver services efficiently. Read the full piece to see why India should adopt a competition-led approach instead.
Too safe to work
Bhuvana Anand, Naveena Pradeep,and Shubho Roy | 11 June 2025 | Insights
A single condition under night shift regulations increases the cost of employing women in a factory by 86%. Read to know how such labour laws, designed to empower women, instead encourage employers to discriminate against employing them at night.
Obstacle ahead
Bhuvana Anand, Sargun Kaur,and Arjun Krishnan | 07 May 2025 | Insights
40% of construction applications around airports are rejected by the Airports Authority of India. Read to know how India can reform airport regulations to balance aviation safety with it’s urgent need for urban growth.
Peripheral blindness
Sargun Kaur, Shubho Roy, and Rohan Ross | 12 March 2025 | Insights
Despite being celebrated as a model of modern urban planning, Chandigarh remains one of the least densely populated among state capitals. Read to know how rigid urban controls restricted the development of Chandigarh’s peripheral areas.
State of Discrimination: Legal barriers on women’s right to choose work in India
Bhuvana Anand, Shubho Roy, and Abhishek Singh | 08 March 2025 | Report
In 2022, our State of Discrimination report ranked 23 states on sex-based legal restrictions assessing four key freedoms. Since then, very little has changed. Read to see which states are offering the greatest freedom for female job seekers today. Please write to us at info@prosperiti.org.in to access the datasets linked to the report.
Labour flexibility for the win
Bhuvana Anand, Abhishek Singh, Shubho Roy, and Arjun Krishnan | 12 February 2025 | Insights
Restrictive labour regulations hinder global competitiveness of firms and increase administrative burdens for entrepreneurs in India. Read to know the potential reforms that can drive India’s manufacturing growth.
Week Ideas
Shubho Roy and Arjun Krishnan | 29 January 2025 | Insights
Labour regulations may be the reason why India trails behind Asian manufacturing centres in electronics exports. Read to understand how annual averaging provision of working hours can enable Indian manufacturers to adapt workforce hours to match production needs.
The ILO Shibboleth
Abhishek Singh, Shubho Roy, and Bhuvana Anand | 02 January 2025 | Insights
Indian working hour regulations for factory workers are even stricter than ILO standards. Read to know how greater flexibility could boost manufacturing competitiveness.
Economic Action, Criminal Sanction
Bhuvana Anand and Shubho Roy | 18 December 2024 | Insights
India’s business laws over-criminalise economic activities. Read to understand how we can introduce effective legislative processes to reform existing business laws in India.
Flatted factories
Shubho Roy and Shaunak Desai | 20 November 2024 | Insights
India can achieve growth in manufacturing by encouraging flatted factories that allow high-density manufacturing in urban areas. However, building regulations in states lead to less than optimal land use for flatted factories.
The wide road to nowhere
Bhuvana Anand, Sargun Kaur, and Shubho Roy | 30 October 2024 | Insights
Location related regulations like minimum road width requirements, stifle rural industrial growth. They do so by limiting industrial land access and increasing setup costs and have implications on resources, taxes, and employment generation opportunities.
Women’s success in India’s IT: a tale of two states
Bhuvana Anand, Shubho Roy, and Abhishek Singh | 25 October 2024 | Paper
Haryana’s IT-BPM success, with high female employment, highlights the role of economic freedom beyond education and infrastructure. Unlike Punjab, Haryana’s liberal policies, including early permissions for women’s night shifts, fueled sector growth.
The fear of doing business in India
Akhileshwari Reddy and Shubho Roy | 09 October 2024 | Insights
In five Indian states, there is about one criminal case for every three factories under the Factories Act, 1948. Such criminal sanctions have a chilling effect on entrepreneurship and innovation impacting the entrepreneurial drive among India’s business class.
Time Limits, Growth Limits
Bhuvana Anand, Shubho Roy, and Abhishek Singh | 18 September 2024 | Insights
Despite being a preferred destination for investments for global capability centres, India suffers from a drawback. A lack of flexibility in working hours regulations may harm the country’s aspiration of capitalising on the new industry.
DGFASLI’s Standard Reference Notes
Suyog Dandekar, Shubho Roy, and Abhishek Singh | 04 September 2024 | Insights
DGFASALI’s Standard Reference Notes can be valuable source of information on manufacturing sector with ~60 new variables compared to Annual Survey of Induatries. However, it suffer from drawbacks of missing data.
Licence to create jobs
Bhuvana Anand, Shubho Roy, and Arjun Krishnan | 07 August 2024 | Insights
Our researchers use administrative data to identify reforms to the existing framework of contract labour licensing. They highlight that marginal improvements to the existing licensing regime may yield outsized impact on both compliance and ease of doing business.
Hostel Havoc
Bhuvana Anand, Rohan Ross, and Shubho Roy | 24 July 2024 | Insights
In her 2024 Budget speech, the Finance Minister announced plans for hostels for women workers to increase their participation. However, Indian zoning zingers prevent worker residence in industrial areas, reducing productivity and efficiency.
Public heritage, private burden?
Bhuvana Anand, Shubho Roy and Shaunak Desai | 10 July 2024 | Insights
Indian cities face a dilemma: balancing urbanization needs while also protecting nationally important monuments. Our analysis of the Monuments Act reveal 3,695 zones where building anything is a 21-question obstacle course.
Getting Economics into India’s laws
Bhuvana Anand and Shubho Roy | 19 June 2024 | Insights
NITI Aayog’s mandate was recently expanded to include appraising government legal proposals. However traditional legal analysis may just not be enough. It is necessary to bring economics to the formulation of Indian legal policy.
The Suite Spot
Rohan Ross and Shubho Roy | 29 May 2024 | Insights
The 2024 interim budget allocated Rs. 2,080.03 crore for tourism infrastructure owing to increase in hotel demand. However, this may not help as restrictive building regulations could potentially stifle the industry’s growth.
How Poor Building Standards Hurt Indian Firms
Bhuvana Anand and Sargun Kaur | 09 May 2024 | Podcast | Puliyabaazi
Researchers at Prosperiti share insights from their State of Regulation Report on Puliyabaazi. The report assesses building standards for factories across India, highlighting the cost of these standards and loss of jobs in India.
Laws that limit women’s employment in India
Abhishek Singh | 01 May 2024 | Article | India Development Review
More than 150 laws discriminate against women and prohibit their employment in industries deemed “dangerous”. However, restricting women’s work creates greater poverty for women, which has its own health and safety implications.
Labour Laws Redux
Suyog Dandekar and Shubho Roy | 01 May 2024 | Insights
The success of government schemes that encourage job creation may be hampered by the stringent Indian labour laws. As a result of this, jobs may not be created in the first place.
Trends in Amendments to Building Regulations
Bhuvana Anand, Sargun Kaur, and Shubho Roy | 17 April 2024 | Insights
Starting with relaxed building standards, rather than liberalising them over time, is a crucial step. Increased freedom to build early on can boost job creation and support economic growth.
Illusion of social security
Suyog Dandekar and Shubho Roy | 3 April 2024 | Insights
The Employees’ State Insurance Act, 1948 provides insurance and healthcare benefits for formal sector workers. However the quality of the services have come under scrutiny as the private sector often provides better services.
The cost of ‘model’ laws
Bhuvana Anand, Sargun Kaur, and Shubho Roy | 20 March 2024 | Insights
In January 2024, a new set of building regulations was proposed by the Bureau of Indian Standards, the fifth such document in 54 years. However, these national codes remain more restrictive than some state regulations.
Old wine in new bottle
Bhuvana Anand, Suyog Dandekar, and Shubho Roy | 06 March 2024 | Insights
Two new laws by the Indian government are expected to bring gig workers under labour welfare schemes. However such laws generally fail, not because of poor implementation but because of incorrect fundamental principles.
Planning for Uncertainity
Bhuvana Anand, Shubho Roy, and Anandhakrishnan S | 21 February 2024 | Insights
Delhi faces a dual housing problem; simultaneously suffering from plenty and shortage of housing. Despite having a monopoly in planning and power to implement laws, the authorities fail at the preliminary task of predicting the future population.
13th time lucky
Rohan Ross and Shubho Roy | 7 February 2024 | Insights
Since 2006, the government has failed to devise a policy to solve the problem of illegal construction in Delhi 13 times. This issue unpacks how keeping illegal construction in legal limbo may not be costless.
State of Regulation: Building standards reforms for jobs and growth
Bhuvana Anand, Sargun Kaur, and Shubho Roy | 22 January 2024 | Report
The report ranks 10 states on the restrictiveness of four building standards on factories in India, resulting in money and jobs lost. Please write to us at info@prosperiti.org.in to access the datasets linked to the report.
How building laws lock India’s factory land
Bhuvana Anand, Sargun Kaur, and Shubho Roy | 22 January 2024 | Article | LiveMint
Indian building standards restrict factories from using the plot area effectively or growing vertically. As a result, Indian entrepreneurs pay full price for half land use.
Navigating India’s minimum wage maze
Bhuvana Anand, Suyog Dandekar, and Shubho Roy | 27 December 2023 | Insights
India has a complicated minimum wage structure with around 1,900 wage rates. Despite being an early adopter, compliance rate is low with one estimate showing that non-compliance may be up to 90% in some sectors.
70-hour work-week
Abhishree Choudhary and Shubho Roy | 13 December 2023 | Insights
As urged by Mr. Narayana Murthy, most Indians already clock in 70 hours of work a week. However the organised middle-income manufacturing workers are precluded from exercising the choice of earning more by working 70 hours a week.
Unlocking the potential of Indian cities
Sargun Kaur and Bhavna Mundhra | 01 November 2023 | Insights
Throughout history, the development of cities has been key in the growth process. However, gold-plated minimums for standards that are not growth friendly, leave land in Indian cities unbuilt and unproductive.
The rules of the game matter
Bhuvana Anand, Eknoor Kaur, and Abhishek Singh | 18 October 2023 | Insights
In 1980, Haryana’s per capita income was 6% lower than Punjab’s, but by 2022, it was 49% higher. Haryana’s success adds weight to the role of economic freedom in driving prosperity.
Lower the bar, increase the earnings
Bhuvana Anand, Shubho Roy, and Prisha Saxena | 04 October 2023 | Insights
The Factories Act 1948 regulates working hours setting multiple caps and restrictions on the number of hours a worker can earn in a factory. On the contrary, relaxed working hour limits can increase a worker’s yearly earnings by more than 60%.
(No) Room to Grow
Eknoor Kaur, Sirjan Kaur, and Shubho Roy | 20 September 2023 | Insights
India’s strict space requirements for workers and facilities like canteen, ambulance rooms, etc makes India lose out on generating more jobs. However easing these within a factory can create ~35% more jobs in India.
Parking Reserved
Bhuvana Anand, Sargun Kaur, and Anandhakrishnan S | 06 September 2023 | Insights
Industrial land in India is scarce. This scarcity is not a result of unavailability of land but of building regulations like parking requirements due to which manufacturers lose up to ~45% of their land.
Double or Nothing
Suyog Dandekar and Shubho Roy | 23 August 2023 | Insights
India’s goods exports which was roughly thrice of Vietnam’s in 2010, stood at slightly less than Vietnam’s in 2020. One reason for India’s failure to industrialise quickly may be India’s labour regulations which harms the workers it intends to protect.
When Exemptions Become The Rule
Abhishree Choudhary and Shubho Roy | 09 August 2023 | Insights
Indian cities die at night due to the plethora of restrictions imposed by the Shops and Establishments Act. It is time to rethink the laws that hinder economic growth, job creation and economic activity in India.
Hard, but Brittle
Bhuvana Anand, Shubho Roy, and Abhishek Singh | 26 July 2023 | Insights
India’s inflexible forest conservation law has increased the cost of public utilities, hindered local democratic decision-making, and may even be harming our environmental aspirations.
Government Order Raj in K-12 Education
Abhishree Choudhary, Bhavna Mundhra, and Prisha Saxena | 26 July 2023 | Insights
Nearly 12 crore students, that is, half of India’s school-going children, go to private schools. Despite this yeoman’s service, private schools in India navigate discretion, vilification, and excessive regulation.
Seeing forests everywhere: A cure is finally within sight
Bhuvana Anand and Abhishek Singh | 21 July 2023 | Article | LiveMint
Lawmakers are set to discuss the Forest Conservation (Amendment) Bill, 2023, in the monsoon session of Parliament. This is a rare opportunity for India to correct a 27-year-old policy logjam that is holding up growth and employment opportunities.
Stunted Growth
Anandhakrishnan S, Bhuvana Anand, and Shubho Roy | 28 June 2023 | Insights
Commercial buildings in Indian cities can employ 5 times more people by liberalising the floor area ratio requirement. However such strict building regulations limit the creation of jobs along with making commercial spaces costlier.
Dangerous Paternalism
Bhuvana Anand, Eknoor Kaur, and Shubho Roy | 14 June 2023 | Insights
Indian states restrict women from working in 217 tasks across 82 industries. These restrictions stem from a paternalistic approach of protecting women. However, allowing women to work in “dangerous” jobs may add two years to their life.
At the Margin
Bhavna Mundhra and Shubho Roy | 31 May 2023 | Insights
Setbacks across states seem to be set without an appropriate accounting of costs and benefits, and often display false scientism. For India to be the next world-class manufacturing hub, factories need to scale and expand horizontally.
Losing Ground
Sargun Kaur and Shubho Roy | 17 May 2023 | Insights
Industries may lose more than half of their plot area to ground coverage limits. However, states can unlock 25-60% of factory land for productive economic use by easing ground coverage limits.
How to ensure more women in the workforce
Bhuvana Anand | 29 April 2022 | Article | Hindustan Times
Non-discrimination in the law is a necessary first step to help female job-seekers enter the market without any roadblocks. But employers also need to see the paucity of women as a problem and be willing to implement solutions.
How Indian laws patronise working women, limit job opportunities
Prisha Saxena and Sirjan Kaur | 21 April 2022 | Article | BehanBox
Despite working as a binding assistant in a textbook publishing house for 19 years, Leela was overlooked for the post of supervisor. Reason? As a woman, she could not work beyond 7 pm, under the Factories Act, 1948, which she would need to in a supervisory role.
Women in the night shift: Terms and conditions apply
Sargun Kaur and Sirjan Kaur | 17 March 2022 | Article | Business Standard
State repeatedly mollycoddles adults on the basis of sex. In 13 Indian states, women can only be employed for night-shifts if their employers comply with a set of conditions mandated under their Shops and Establishments Acts.
No cabaret, crooning or cocktails
Sarvnipun Kaur and Abhishek Singh | 13 March 2022 | Article | The Print
State laws across the country impose restrictions on the employment of females in the hospitality industry. Such establishments cannot legally employ female artistes unless they take the excise collector’s written permission.
The curious case of Indian working women
Bhuvana Anand, Baishali Bomjan, and Sarvnipun Kaur | 08 March 2022 | Article | LiveMint
Only 18.6% of working-age women in India participate in the labour force, three times lower than men. Reason? A maze of sex-based legal discriminatory laws across Indian states come between women and work.
State of Discrimination: Sub-national comparison of legal barriers to women’s right to choose work in India
Bhuvana Anand and Sarvnipun Kaur | 08 March 2022 | Report
Sex-based legal restrictions impede the entry of women into the labour market. The State of Discrimination report studies the last of these factors by documenting and measuring legal discrimination against female jobseekers. Please write to us at info@prosperiti.org.in to access the datasets linked to the report.
What can we expect from the labour codes?
Bhuvana Anand and Sarvnipun Kaur | 19 November 2022 | Article | TeamLease
Indian labour regulations penalise the growth of businesses by increasing the volume of regulations on enterprises willing to scale up. Now, state governments have approximately 5 months to frame pro worker, pro-business rules.
ReformScope
#SetbackRegulation | December 2024
Freedom to build in India
#FactoriesAct, 1948, Section 87 | September 2024
Women’s freedom to work in India
#BuildingRegulations | February 2024
Building standards reforms for jobs and growth