Make customers pay for the use of regulatory services.

(From Business Line)

Byline: Jayanth R. Varma

In India, neither SEBI nor the Registrar of Companies has a system of carrying out a regulatory review of the accounting statements filed by companies.

IT is often said that regulation has a cost but does not have a price. In the financial sector for example, regulatory services are provided by RBI, SEBI, IRDA and other government bodies at the taxpayers' cost and the users of these services do not have to pay for them.

As a result some services of dubious value may be provided though there is no real demand for them. At the same time, some kinds of services that are very useful to the society may not be …