Panel may be set up for creating India's 'Big Four'

The government may set up a panel under corporate affairs secretary Deepti Gaur Mukerjee to suggest ways to build an “enabling ecosystem” and help create large home-grown chartered accountancy (CA) firms comparable to the ‘Big Four', people familiar with the development said.

The plan follows a meeting by the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) on Friday to deliberate on creating a system where CA firms would be encouraged to pursue expansion and growth, they said. The meeting was chaired by Shaktikanta Das, principal secretary-2 to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and attended by senior officials with the PMO and the corporate affairs ministry, among others.

The planned panel will likely suggest changes that would be required to the extant policy and regulatory frameworks to enable small firms to scale up through both local and global tie-ups, the people said.


It could also review impediments that are currently discouraging firms to grow in size.

The prime minister had earlier called for the creation of at least four large domestic firms that would be counted among the world’s top eight.

Currently, the Big Four—EY, Deloitte, KPMG and PwC—along with Grant Thornton and BDO dominate the Indian audit ecosystem. By some estimates, the combined revenue of the Indian affiliates of the Big Four alone may have exceeded as much as Rs 45,000 crore last fiscal.

“With policy support, regulatory momentum, and entrepreneurial drive, India can potentially produce its own Big Four in this decade itself,” said Rakesh Nangia, founder & managing partner at Nangia & Co LLP.

The vision is “not merely an economic imperative, but a strategic assertion of India's mighty intellectual capital”, Nangia added.

Dinesh Kanabar, chief executive at Dhruva Advisors, said the dominance of the global Big Four was built on the back of multinational expansion but “India today is equally poised to lead”.

“Our firms have the talent, the market, and the credibility to scale globally. What we now need is a concerted push: Indian firms must invest in quality, governance, and global presence, while regulators must enable visibility and innovation,” Kanabar added.