Regulatory governance is referred as systemic implementation of government-wide-policies which are effective, efficient, transparent, and accessible. The functioning of regulatory government is composed of regulatory policy, institutions, quality tools, processes, and outputs.

Regulatory bodies are established by the government to carryout dense technical tasks which government is unable to do wholly, because government wishes to distance itself from responsibility for some decisions. Therefore, it is assumed that the regulatory authorities possess detailed powers as compared to any government department or state-owned industries without any impatient interference of government or bureaucratic pressure.

In order to simplify the regulation, we can say that it is the diverse set of instruments by which governments set requirements on business, citizens, and the public sector, which include law, formal and informal orders and subordinate rules issued by all levels of government; and rules issued by non-governmental or self-regulatory bodies to whom government have delegated powers.

Further, we have seen some deregulated activities as well. Deregulation means elimination of regulatory requirements for which social welfare costs are judged to be higher than social welfare benefits.

The overall goal of regulatory governance is to increase net social benefits, which ensures that both benefits and costs are considered in judging the effects of reforms. The links between various kinds of regulatory reforms and economic growth have been explored in numerous studies.

In order to increase net social benefits, the regulatory bodies need support of government and its auxiliary bodies to implement rules and regulations, unfortunately, it is observed that the local bodies lack intent/will to identify offences, do capacity building and reporting, conflict resolution, monitoring, and gathering evidence for taking remedial measures at grass root levels.

The role of law enforcement and local government agencies is supposed to ensure accountability, transparency, and systemic functioning to ensure efficiency, alignment, quality of service and protection of customers’ rights, whereas, the role of regulator is to oversee interaction between policy makers, communities, consumers, and service providers.

In conclusion, we can say, that for applying regulatory reforms in true letter- and- spirit we must train officers belonging to field/local government into a professional executive through constant interaction to serve as instruments for the development and implementation of the reform agenda.  Additionally, a cloud-based system may be developed and accessible online by the field officers/local administration as well as by the Regulator to keep track record of all activities for compliance framework. Also, individuals of local administration may be assigned specific tasks in collaboration with Chief Secretaries to ensure accountability and professional ability to scrutinize regulatory updates and business impact to gain a comprehensive view of the number of regulatory updates affecting functional business areas and consumers.

-The writer is Deputy Executive Director (Media & Public Relations)