Acting with restraint

Overall, regulators have done a competent job, but they need to work on lack of transparency and overreach

CHIEF ECONOMIC ADVISER Anantha Nageswaran's appeal to the regulators to become more transparent about the rationale behind their decisions, and be mindful of the boundaries of their "unelected power," is unexceptionable. While India's regulators have done a competent job, there is indeed a need to strike the right balance between their proximate and explicit objectives of systemic stability, viability and risk mitigation for the regulated entities/stakeholders, and the imperative of not standing in the way of innovation, enterprise and growth. They would do well to refrain from impulsive, unpredictable behaviour. As Nageswaran pointed out, "the regulators must explain why a particular regulation is being introduced, the information prompting it, the goals it seeks to achieve, and the criteria for withdrawing it." This is necessary not only because trust in regulatory decisions is built with such finer accountability, but because unlike the political executive, most regulators, except a few like the Comptroller and Auditor General of India, aren't directly accountable to people at large via Parliament.