Key Details
The report does not advocate uniform deregulation across professions. It identifies a different problem: some professions face outdated or overlapping restrictions, while others lack the regulation needed to establish competence, accountability and public safety. Its proposed direction combines greater commercial flexibility with stronger professional standards.
Profession | Regulatory Gap | Direction Identified |
|---|---|---|
Legal services | Only advocates receive statutory recognition; advertising and business structures remain restricted | Recognise allied legal professionals, revisit advertising rules and permit multidisciplinary practices with safeguards |
Accounting and bookkeeping | Foreign participation remains limited; bookkeeping has little formal oversight | Expand mutual recognition and create qualification, ethics and training standards for bookkeepers |
Architecture | Registration can be duplicated locally; firms have limited organisational options | Streamline registration, introduce competency assessment and permit LLP structures |
Engineering | No comprehensive statutory framework governs professional practice | Regulate engineers involved in construction and infrastructure where public safety is implicated |
Healthcare | Multiple licensing layers restrict mobility across States and professions | Create licence portability, operationalise national registers and harmonise pathways for foreign-trained professionals |
Professional Services Have Become a Major Export Asset
NITI Aayog report, India’s Services Sector: Insights on Regulatory Regime in Professional Services examines whether India's regulatory framework can support the expansion of professional services while maintaining professional standards and public-interest safeguards.
India’s share of global services exports rose from 2% in 2005 to 4.3% in 2024, making it the world’s seventh-largest services exporter. Professional and management consulting services accounted for nearly one-fifth of services exports in 2024–25, with exports growing by around 18% annually between FY2015 and FY2025.
Growth varies across professions:
Engineering: US$1.77 billion → US$13.77 billion between 2014–15 and 2024–25
Accounting, auditing and bookkeeping: US$617 million → US$3.32 billion
Legal services: US$1.28 billion
Architecture: US$793 million
Health services: US$723 million
NITI Aayog sees scope to move from cost-based outsourcing towards higher-value services such as engineering design, legal analytics, strategic advisory, financial modelling, regulatory compliance and sustainability services.
Regulation Differs Sharply Across Professions
India has no common regulatory model for professional services. Law, accounting, architecture and healthcare have profession-specific statutes and regulators, while engineering, landscape architecture, urban planning and bookkeeping are lightly regulated or lack comprehensive statutory frameworks.
The policy question is therefore not simply deregulation. It is whether restrictions are proportionate to client protection and public safety, or unnecessarily constrain competition, scale and innovation.
Legal and Architectural Firms Face Structural Constraints
Law firms may operate as proprietorships, partnerships or LLPs, but not as companies or multidisciplinary practices. Advocates also face restrictions on advertising and solicitation.
The report proposes reconsidering these constraints while protecting confidentiality, professional independence and safeguards against conflicts of interest. It also recommends formal recognition and skilling pathways for in-house counsel, paralegals and legal-process outsourcing professionals.
For architecture, it proposes:
allowing practices to form LLPs;
reducing duplicative local registration; and
considering a professional licensing examination alongside academic qualifications.
Engineering Regulation Would Focus on Public Safety
Engineering is the strongest export performer among the professions examined, yet India lacks a comprehensive national framework for professional engineers.
Rather than licensing every engineering activity, the report prioritises construction and infrastructure, where professional failure can directly affect public safety. A statutory framework could establish minimum qualifications, ethical duties and professional accountability.
It also proposes recognising architects and engineers as allied professions, clarifying overlapping responsibilities while allowing multidisciplinary collaboration.
Professional Mobility Requires Recognition at Home and Abroad
Professionals can face repeated registration, examinations or licensing when moving across States or countries. The report recommends:
expanding Mutual Recognition Agreements (MRAs) internationally;
creating transparent bridge courses and assessment pathways;
enabling interstate licence portability for healthcare professionals; and
publishing clear authorisation criteria, timelines and appeal mechanisms.
It also calls for full implementation of the National Commission for Allied and Healthcare Professions Act, 2021, operational national registers and harmonised pathways for qualified foreign-trained health professionals.
What Is a Mutual Recognition Agreement? An MRA enables regulators in different jurisdictions to recognise specified professional qualifications or licences. Additional training, examinations or local-law requirements may still apply.
Four Priorities Cut Across Professions
NITI Aayog identifies four common reform priorities:
Continuous professional development: consistent requirements for updating skills after qualification.
Good regulatory practices: transparent licensing conditions, timelines, consultation and appeals.
Higher-value services: movement from routine execution towards research, design, analytics and strategic advisory.
Emerging capabilities: skills for AI-enabled services, ESG reporting, climate-risk assessment, carbon accounting and supply-chain advisory.
The broader objective is to combine greater commercial flexibility with credible professional standards, allowing Indian firms and professionals to scale into higher-value domestic and international markets.
Policy Relevance
Regulatory reform should be sector-specific: Restrictions that are unnecessary in consulting or bookkeeping may remain essential in medicine, auditing or structural engineering.
Professional regulation affects firm-level scale: Limits on legal form, investment and multidisciplinary practice can prevent firms from expanding or competing with integrated global providers.
Mobility is a trade policy issue: Exporting professional services increasingly depends on recognition of qualifications, licensing cooperation and provisions negotiated through trade agreements.
Public protection must remain central: Liberalisation should be accompanied by conflict-of-interest rules, professional liability, ethical standards and effective disciplinary mechanisms.
Regulatory gaps can be as consequential as excessive regulation: Engineering, bookkeeping and landscape architecture require credible oversight where poor-quality services create financial or safety risks.
Implementation requires several independent regulators: NITI Aayog cannot operationalise most proposals by itself; reforms would require legislative changes and decisions by professional councils, ministries and State authorities.
The report explicitly describes its proposals as non-prescriptive insights derived from research and stakeholder consultations, rather than adopted government policy.
Follow the Full Report Here: NITI Aayog, India’s Services Sector: Insights on Regulatory Regime in Professional Services, 2026