QCOs meant to help firms match global standards end up hurting some

The number of Quality Control Orders has seen a quantum jump since 2019, but many of them have ended up unintentionally hurting, instead of helping, industry

More than 70 years ago during a Parliament debate on protection given against import of soda ash to domestic glass manufacturers, Prof Meghnad Saha had argued that duties on intermediates had harmed domestic production. The eminent scientist's lengthy intervention in the Lok Sabha is worth a read today, especially in the context of India’s episodic efforts to offer similar protections to large local manufacturers, albeit through other means such as quality control.

 

More recently, the problem has been delineated in a recent paper written by Prerna Prabhakar, Fellow at the Centre for Social and Economic Progress. The September 2025 paper