Govt takes first steps towards a domestic firm to take on global Big Four

Industry professionals welcome move, but point to onerous regulatory hurdles, such as a block against multi-disciplinary collaboration and advertising, that need to be tackled first

Nearly eight years after Prime Minister Narendra Modi first flagged the idea of establishing a large Indian consultancy firm on a par with the global Big Four, the government has initiated a dialogue to identify regulatory hurdles and the way forward.  

A concept note issued by the Ministry of Corporate Affairs (MCA) recently on creating an Indian multidisciplinary partnership (MDP) firm has raised long-standing issues, and analysts said addressing them would give a good start to this effort. 

The Big Four — Deloitte, EY, KPMG, and PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) — are the world’s largest audit