The IHDS Forum is a monthly update of socio-economic developments in India by the IHDS research community, based on the India Human Development Survey, jointly conducted by NCAER and the University of Maryland. While two earlier rounds of the survey were completed in 2004-05 and 2011-12, respectively. Fieldwork for the third round was undertaken in 2022-24 and the data is currently being cleaned and processed.
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The objective of this report was to assess the impact of food delivery platforms on restaurants. This is the second of the three part research series on the Food Delivery Platform economy of India. The National Council of Applied Economic Research (NCAER) conducted an in-person survey of 640 restaurants across 28 cities with representation from all city types (Tier 1, 2 and 3) and regions (North, South, East and West). The survey was carried out between April and September 2023 and included both platform (89 per cent) and non-platform (11 per cent) restaurants. A 3-E framework of entry, experience and exit was used to assess the relationship between the food delivery platforms and restaurants. The focus was on the behavioural relationships between platforms and restaurants. The impact of food delivery platforms on restaurants may be both monetary and non-monetary. Monetary gains refer to direct monetary or financial benefits in terms of higher profits and revenue/sales. Non-monetary gains to firms are intangible benefits and, for the purposes of this report, do not have any immediate direct monetary benefits.
Competitiveness and quality must advance together. Regulation that raises costs without raising safety standards undermines the very manufacturing strategy India is trying to build.
India’s decision to withdraw quality control orders (QCOs) on a wide basket of industrial raw materials marks one of the most meaningful regulatory resets in recent years. In a manufacturing economy where delays and compliance costs can quietly determine competitiveness, the rollback is both timely and necessary. It acknowledges what industry has long argued: Mandatory certification is a blunt instrument when applied to low-risk, widely traded inputs.
As detailed by NITI Aayog’s recent report, over the past few years, QCOs have grown from a targeted instrument of quality assurance into a sprawling system of mandatory certification, growing from 70 a decade ago to over 790 earlier this year. Intended to keep substandard imports out, they increasingly swept in a wide range of industrial inputs: Polymers, fibre intermediates, aluminium and copper products, and even steel grades that pose no direct safety risk.
No major manufacturing economy regulates such raw materials through compulsory audits. In the EU and US, conformity requirements overwhelmingly apply to finished goods and safety-critical items, with quality for intermediate inputs managed through voluntary technical standards and contractual testing.
India’s approach carried high costs. When foreign suppliers — including those in Japan, Korea and the EU — declined to undergo factory inspections for low-volume shipments, Indian manufacturers were left with fewer sourcing options and higher input prices. MSMEs in particular struggled with the paperwork, delays and limited BIS testing capacity. For export-facing sectors like man-made fibre textiles, engineering goods and electronics assembly, the QCO regime became a barrier, eroding the price-competitiveness India needs to hold its own against Vietnam, China and Bangladesh.
Against this backdrop, the recent rollback is a sensible reset. It acknowledges that quality cannot be legislated by expanding the list of items under mandatory certification. Quality depends on identifying the right risks and regulating where safety or consumer harm is genuinely at stake. The NITI Aayog report argued, persuasively, that India’s standards regime must follow global practice: Regulate construction steel, pressure vessels, electrical equipment and other high-stakes products, but allow market mechanisms and voluntary standards to govern bulk raw materials.
The withdrawal, notified on November 13, removes compulsory BIS certification for 14 products under the chemicals and petrochemicals department and six under the mines ministry. These include some of the most widely used intermediates in the country’s manufacturing value chain. For manufacturers across textiles, plastics and engineering goods, this is a real easing of pressure, not a symbolic gesture.
This signals a maturing regulatory philosophy. A country that can unwind overregulation is one that understands the complexities of modern supply chains. For industries targeted under the PLI schemes — electronics, specialty steel, technical textiles — the decision offers much-needed breathing room. Manufacturers cannot build globally competitive products if they cannot reliably source globally competitive inputs.
None of this means India should dilute its quality ambitions. On the contrary, a sharper, risk based framework will make quality enforcement more credible. Mandatory certification should be strengthened in areas with clear consumer or public-safety implications. At the same time, the government should invest in expanding testing capacity, speeding up certification timelines and conducting impact assessments before adding new products to the QCO list.
The lesson is straightforward: Competitiveness and quality must advance together. Regulation that raises costs without raising safety standards undermines the very manufacturing strategy India is trying to build. In an era where global manufacturers value reliability as much as cost, India’s willingness to recalibrate sends a positive signal to investors and trading partners alike.
The revocation marks a clear shift toward a more pragmatic, globally aligned quality regime. If India continues on this path — with quality regulation that is risk-based, proportionate and grounded in capacity — it will be better positioned to compete in the industries that will define the next decade.
Krishna is distinguished professor of International Economics and Business at Johns Hopkins University. Sharma is research associate, International Economics at NCAER. Views are personal.
This is report is the third and concluding part of the research series on the food delivery platform economy. The food delivery platform is an intermediary between three sets of agents – consumers who demand food, restaurants which supply food and workers who deliver food from the restaurants to the consumers. At any point of time, there are three separate markets that are functioning in this sector. It is a multi-sided platform. This is an eco-system that connects millions of households, restaurants, delivery partners, technology companies and support/allied services. The report provides an economic footprint on India’s food delivery platform sector, covering its contribution to overall output, employment and tax revenue.
While India has made progress in installed capacity for renewable energy sources, power generation from renewables remains low. In this post, Chaudhuri and Rath content that renewable energy budgets of several states continue to be limited, with only a few states demonstrating a strong commitment to sustainable energy transition. They recommend balancing capital and revenue expenditures and promoting private investment in large-scale infrastructure projects.
Infrastructure development is essential for successful deployment and integration of renewable energy in any country. Renewable sources like solar and wind are variable, location-specific, and often generated in remote areas far from consumption centres. Therefore, robust transmission infrastructure is required to evacuate power efficiently and reduce curtailments. Smart grids and upgraded distribution systems are necessary to manage the intermittent nature of renewable energy, balance demand and supply in real time with local manufacturing, and enable bidirectional flow1 in decentralised systems like rooftop solar. It is also imperative to ensure grid stability with infrastructure such as mini grids and solar pumps. Institutional and regulatory infrastructure like forecasting tools, energy exchanges, and market mechanisms further supports efficient renewable energy operations.
India’s energy demand continues to rise driven by urbanisation and industrialisation, which raise living standards and the need for energy. Therefore, transitioning to a sustainable, low-carbon energy system is now a necessity. In recognition of this, India has set an ambitious target of becoming net-zero by the year 2070, and plans to reach a 500 GW non-fossil fuel capacity by 2030. As of January 2025, renewable energy sources comprised approximately 46% of India’s total installed power capacity. However, renewables accounted for only 22-24% of actual electricity generation, pointing to issues of intermittency, grid integration, and underutilisation of installed capacity. This gap highlights the need to move beyond capacity expansion and focus on systemic reforms.
One major reason is lack of financial investment to develop renewable energy infrastructure. In several states, renewable energy budgets remain limited, with only a few states demonstrating a strong commitment to sustainable energy transition. For instance, Gujarat and Chhattisgarh have seen significant investment in the renewable energy sector, both in the public and private sectors2. This is spurred by the high industrial energy requirement and stable state policies to scale up the installed capacity. Institutes such as GEDA (Gujarat Energy Development Agency) and GERC (Gujarat Electricity Regulatory Commission) have built the enabling infrastructure that attracts private capital by strengthening transmission networks, and enhanced fiscal health through green projects such as the Rs. 29,000 Crore Green Energy Corridor. The ease of power purchase agreements (PPA) also led to greater confidence among investors. Other states that have prioritised renewal energy in their budgets include Jharkhand, Haryana, Maharashtra, and Uttar Pradesh.
To meet its growing energy demand, India must significantly increase investment in the electricity sector, including capacity expansion, grid modernisation, and the transition to renewable energy. Expenditure in the renewable energy sector can be classified mainly into two categories, namely capital expenditure and revenue expenditure. Capital expenditure creates long-term benefits, largely in the form of infrastructure development like installation of solar parks, etc. One effective way to increase installed capacity is increasing capital investment in the renewable energy sector. Revenue expenditure, on the other hand, covers day-to-day expenses such as salaries, operation costs, or government subsidies in the form of schemes or other programmes.
Across several Indian states, climate and energy departments continue to allocate a larger share of their budgets to revenue expenditure, whereas capital expenditure on infrastructure and technology remains limited. Among the states which spent significantly on renewable energy, like Jharkhand and Uttar Pradesh, capital expenditure is consistently low or even entirely absent. Even in states with significant renewable energy potential, such as Maharashtra and Haryana, the installed capacity is relatively low, highlighting a huge scope for capital expenditure. These imbalanced spending patterns raise questions of these states’ capacity to achieve their renewable energy targets and maximise their potential given the significant lack of capital investment needed for grid modernisation, decentralised energy generation, and ensuring the long-term sustainability of the sector.
Chhattisgarh and Gujarat distinguish themselves by prioritising capital expenditure, dedicating 89% and 81% of their respective renewable energy budgets to infrastructure development. Gujarat employs a blended finance mechanism where the public capex works as an anchor for investment by the private players. Gujarat leads the country in rooftop solar installations of 5.3 GW across 9.6 lakh households. The Gandhinagar rooftop solar public private partnership (PPP) model was successfully implemented in Vadodara and five other cities. Industrial constituencies demand reliable power, renewable projects generate sustainable employment, and Gujarat’s success spurs inter-state competition to replicate its model. For instance, the success of Gujrat was replicated in Chhattisgarh when it secured Rs. 3 lakh crore energy investments using a similar PPP model, with significant allocation for solar initiatives.
In order for states to leverage capital expenditure to attract private finance, it is important to mitigate the potential risks for developers. To this end, state governments ought to invest in land and balance the infrastructure with adequate grid connectivity. In a federal governance structure like India, effective coordination between central and state government priorities is essential. With regard to renewable energy development, the infrastructure investments of many states are not only aligned with national targets, but are also creating an enabling environment to achieve national goals and build political momentum.
To ensure sustainable growth in their renewable energy sectors, states should establish a more balanced capital-revenue allocation framework. This could be a PPP model where Centre and state work together to encourage private spending in large-scale infrastructure projects. Fiscal space for renewable energy infrastructure can be expanded by diversifying revenues through sale of power to other states. Central mechanisms like PM-KUSUM and viability gap funding further ease budgetary pressure.
States that currently devote almost their entire budgets to revenue expenses should consider adopting a structured, phased transition plan over 3 to 5 years, gradually raising their capital expenditure share by 15-20% annually. This step-by-step approach prevents disruption to ongoing operations while steadily expanding essential renewable energy infrastructure through flexible targets, policy reforms, financial innovation, regulatory clarity, and capacity-building of state agencies – such that more states can modernise their infrastructure and maintain regulatory compliance. Such reforms can ultimately accelerate progress toward actualising India’s ambitious renewable energy goals.
The views expressed in this post are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of the I4I Editorial board.
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