4,694 compliance gaps across 52 workplaces, nearly half carrying risk of imprisonment: Report

NEW DELHI: TeamLease Regtech recently released a research, named Hiding in Plain Sight, spanning factories, warehouses, corporate offices and mines run by leading Indian enterprises in 17 states and union territories. It records 4,694 non-compliances, about 90 per site, which indicates that the exposure is serious. Every one of the 52 sites covered by the compliance audits had gaps.

70% of the gaps were punishable offences, and 46% carried possible imprisonment. 29% named directors or senior officers personally and 31% attracted fines that grow every day.

Rishi Agrawal, Co-founder and CEO, TeamLease RegTech, said in a statement, "Every leadership team we meet believes they are compliant. Yet every site we have audited reveals significant compliance gaps. The question for every board is whether it finds these gaps first or an inspector, a customer or an investor does."


The root cause is complexity. Indian enterprises answer to 3 levels of government, 7 categories of law, 21 types of regulatory instruments and 41 types of compliance. 3,756 union, state, and local-level government websites change obligations almost daily. States and local bodies also set their own thresholds, forms, wage structures and penalties.

Yet the risk is predictable. Labour and Environment law drove 92% of the gaps, and just ten laws drove nearly 60%. Every company studied chose to commission a compliance audit, so these findings are a floor, not a ceiling. The report urges enterprises to map every applicable law to each site and fix gaps in order of legal consequence. It also calls for regular on-ground compliance audits that cover contractors and warehouses too.