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The Prime Minister addressed the Economic Times World Leaders Forum 2026 on 21 August 2026, on the theme 'Shared Future', setting out a roadmap of governance-level and policy-level reforms.
He framed the central shift as one of regulatory philosophy - from 'prohibited unless permitted' to 'permitted unless prohibited' - arguing that the government-citizen relationship must rest on trust rather than suspicion.
He contrasted what he called 'Production Linked Punishment' under the licence raj, when output beyond a fixed limit invited penalty, with the Production Linked Incentive scheme, citing about Rs 2.5 lakh crore of investment, over Rs 22 lakh crore of production and sales, over Rs 15 lakh crore of exports and more than 14 lakh direct and indirect jobs from that one scheme.
He listed the record behind the shift: the Jan Vishwas law's decriminalisation of procedural offences, removal of more than 40,000 compliances, repeal of over 1,500 obsolete laws, and the Bankers' Books Evidence Bill passed in the 2026 monsoon session replacing a nineteenth-century statute.
On outcomes he cited railway safety and hygiene figures, the deregulation of geospatial data and drones, the SHANTI law opening nuclear energy to private participation, the merger of over 40 ordnance factories into 7 corporate entities, a 55-fold rise in defence exports since 2014, nearly 50 crore e-Sanjeevani teleconsultations and over 50 lakh families connected to PM Surya Ghar.
Under a 'prohibited unless permitted' regime - the positive-list or licensing model - an economic activity is presumed barred until the state grants approval for it. Under 'permitted unless prohibited' the presumption reverses: anything the law does not expressly forbid needs no permission, and the state's job shifts from gatekeeping every transaction to enforcing a defined list of prohibitions. The practical consequences are the ones the Prime Minister listed - decriminalising procedural lapses, deleting compliances, repealing dead statutes, and deregulating whole activities such as mapping and drone flying. The trade-off, which the address does not discuss, is that a negative list demands stronger after-the-fact enforcement and clearer liability rules, since the state is no longer inspecting at the entry gate.
Simple Analogy: A gated colony where every visitor needs the secretary's approval, versus one where anyone may enter unless they are on a published banned list.
| Aspect | Licence raj era ('Production Linked Punishment') | Post-2020 ('Production Linked Incentive') |
|---|---|---|
| Treatment of extra output | Production above the licensed limit attracted penalty; firms are said to have destroyed surplus stock rather than sell it | Incentive paid on incremental production and sales above a base year |
| Regulatory presumption | Prohibited unless permitted - approval needed at each step | Permitted unless prohibited - approval needed only where law expressly requires it |
| Instrument | Industrial licensing, capacity caps, approvals | Outlay-backed incentive scheme with production and investment thresholds |
| Scale | Capacity restricted by licence | PLI: 14 sectors, outlay of about Rs 1.97 lakh crore, notified from 2020, coordinated by DPIIT |
| Stated result | Shortages and suppressed employment | Investment of about Rs 2.5 lakh crore and over 14 lakh jobs from one scheme, as cited in this address |
Notified on 11 August 2023, it decriminalised 183 provisions across 42 Central Acts administered by 19 ministries and departments, replacing imprisonment for minor and procedural offences with monetary penalties and administrative remedies. It is the statutory expression of 'trust, not suspicion', and successive Jan Vishwas amendments have continued the exercise.
Passed in the 2026 monsoon session - the Lok Sabha cleared it on 5 August 2026 and Presidential assent followed on 13 August 2026 - replacing the Bankers' Books Evidence Act, 1891. It gives electronic and digital records of bankers' books explicit recognition as admissible and legally enforceable evidence, subject to safeguards. This is the nineteenth-century law the Prime Minister referred to.
Passed in the 2025 winter session and assented to in December 2025, it repealed the Atomic Energy Act, 1962 and the Civil Liability for Nuclear Damage Act, 2010, consolidating them into a single framework and opening nuclear power generation, plant operation and parts of the fuel cycle to private participation.
The deregulation the Prime Minister described when he said mapping India was once effectively barred to Indians. The guidelines removed prior-approval requirements for Indian entities collecting and processing geospatial data, and are the basis of the startup activity he cited.
Raise domestic manufacturing, cut import dependence and build scale in identified sectors by paying incentives on incremental production and sales.
Key: Notified from 2020 for 14 sectors with a combined outlay of about Rs 1.97 lakh crore, covering automobiles and auto components, electronics and IT hardware, telecom, pharmaceuticals, solar PV modules, specialty steel, textiles, white goods, drones and advanced chemistry cell batteries, among others. DPIIT under the Ministry of Commerce and Industry coordinates the overall programme, while each sectoral scheme is run by its own ministry.
Install rooftop solar on one crore households and provide up to 300 units of free electricity a month, with surplus power sold to the grid.
Key: Launched on 13 February 2024 with a total outlay of Rs 75,021 crore, under the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy. The Prime Minister cited more than 50 lakh families connected and over Rs 22,000 crore released to them as subsidy.
Give farmers energy and water security, de-dieselise the farm sector and add income from solar generation.
Key: Launched in March 2019 under the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy and scaled up in January 2024. Three components: A - decentralised ground or stilt-mounted grid-connected renewable plants up to 2 MW on farmers' land; B - standalone solar agriculture pumps; C - solarisation of grid-connected pumps, through individual pump solarisation or feeder-level solarisation.
National telemedicine service connecting patients to doctors remotely, both doctor-to-doctor at health facilities and directly to citizens.
Key: A cloud-based platform of the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, designed and maintained by C-DAC Mohali. It runs in two variants - the hub-and-spoke service rolled out through Ayushman Bharat Health and Wellness Centres, and eSanjeevaniOPD for the public, launched on 13 April 2020. Nearly 50 crore teleconsultations, as cited in this address.
Coordinates the overall PLI programme and India's ease-of-doing-business and compliance-reduction agenda, including the decriminalisation drive that produced the Jan Vishwas laws.
Builds and maintains roads, bridges, tunnels and airfields in border areas. Raised in 1960 and functioning under the administrative control of the Ministry of Defence; the Prime Minister cited 250 BRO projects dedicated to the nation in 2024 and 2025.
Designed, developed and maintains the e-Sanjeevani national telemedicine platform for the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare. C-DAC is an R&D organisation under the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology.
The Ordnance Factory Board was dissolved on 1 October 2021 and its 41 factories, assets and staff transferred to seven defence public sector undertakings - Munitions India, Armoured Vehicles Nigam, Advanced Weapons and Equipment India, Troop Comforts, Yantra India, India Optel and Gliders India. This is the restructuring referred to in the address.
Compliance reduction, decriminalisation and negative-list regulation are the supply-side half of the growth argument; PLI-type incentives are the demand-side half. Questions on ease of doing business usually want both, plus the caveat that India is no longer ranked on it since the World Bank discontinued the Doing Business report in 2021.
Aadhaar-enabled e-KYC, UPI, DigiYatra, FASTag and e-Sanjeevani are all instances of the same India Stack logic - identity, payments and data layers on which both the state and private firms build services.
PM Surya Ghar and PM-KUSUM place generation with consumers and farmers rather than with utilities, which is why net metering, grid balancing and DISCOM finances are the natural follow-up questions.
The SHANTI Act's opening of nuclear energy and the corporatisation of the ordnance factories are the same policy move in two sectors long reserved to the state - and both raise the same question of liability and accountability once private entities enter.
GS Paper 3 > Indian Economy > Industrial Policy, Growth and Development; GS Paper 2 > Governance > Regulatory Reform
General Awareness > Government Schemes, Banking Law and Economic Policy
General Awareness > Government Schemes and Current Affairs
Ease-of-doing-business reform, PLI and the flagship energy and health schemes recur every year across UPSC, banking and staff selection papers.
A regime in which activity is permitted unless expressly prohibited, as opposed to requiring prior approval for each activity.
Replacing imprisonment with monetary penalties or administrative action for minor, non-fraudulent breaches - the core method of the Jan Vishwas laws.
Computer-based railway signalling that prevents conflicting train movements by locking routes, replacing mechanical and relay systems.
Solarising an entire agricultural power feeder rather than individual pumps - part of Component C of PM-KUSUM.