The hurdles in the long road to India's entry into global bond indices

The govt needs to examine its options to join global central securities depositories without ceding tax sovereignty. This could considerably delay India becoming a part of global bond indices.

Early this year, Indian officials were quite sanguine that the long road to enter the global bond indices had finally ended. There was a reason for the mutual congratulations. It was now almost one year since March 2020, when discussions with the managers of three of the most prominent indices had been almost sealed. 

India wanted to be part of some of these indices for a very good reason. Every year pension and insurance funds park trillions of dollars in these indices as passive investors. Flow of investment into debt papers, largely sovereign ones, happen as per the allotment model