Need to streamline policies to make India GCC hub: Official

Time of India

14-07-2025

Economic Affairs Secretary Anuradha Thakur said there needs to be a deliberation on the policies adopted by states like Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Telangana, wherein most GCCs are localised and see if such policies can be emulated across the country.
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India needs to streamline policies at national level to make the country a hub for Global Capability Centres (GCC), a senior official said on Monday. Economic Affairs Secretary Anuradha Thakur said there needs to be a deliberation on the policies adopted by states like Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Telangana, wherein most GCCs are localised and see if such policies can be emulated across the country.India has about 1,800 GCCs, which are set up by MNCs as offshore facilities to manage their business processes.GCCs contribute to the economy about 1.8 per cent of the total Gross Value Added (GVA) and the innovation in startup ecosystem has helped increase GCC presence in India, she said at the CII-GCC Business Summit."Even now GCCs are focused in particular states so we need to study what those states did earlier, whether it was Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Telangana. We know those states have specific policies both on physical infrastructure and digital infrastructure, they also have certain regulatory policy initiatives which have helped GCCs there and grow further."Whether we need to disturb that, or add more is something that we need to do today, perhaps a bit of both," Thakur said.India is currently focusing on becoming a hub for MNCs to set up their GCCs in the country.In the 2025-26 Budget, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman had announced formulating a national framework, which will guide states in promoting GCCs in tier II cities. "This will suggest measures for enhancing availability of talent and infrastructure, building-bye laws reforms, and mechanisms for collaboration with industry," Sitharaman had said.Thakur said as GCCs are now expanding to Tier 2 cities, there is a need to deliberate on the framework that is needed and also a Centre-state dialogue to expand GCCs geographically.The Secretary said that many states have talented resources and having bulk of the GCCs could be competitive on cost."As more global players are going to be setting up shop, can there be more outreach to different countries to attract them to India," Thakur said.Addressing the same session, Union Labour Secretary Vandana Gurnani said, there is a huge scope for developing GCCs in India to promote employment opportunities for youth.Globally , youth unemployment rate is 13.3 per cent, whereas in India it is 10.2 per cent."Now this is where I think there is a huge scope of GCC and where we need to collectively mobilize together and do a lot of work," she said pointing out that youth unemployment rate has come down from 17.8 per cent in 2017-18 to 10.2 per cent.She highlighted the decent increase in the labour force participation rate, including for women and youth."I know for the IT sector, these (labour reforms or codes) are much required. These changes have already been made. So this is the way currently the work is progressing."While the codes are still coming into effect, she said the action has shifted to states and when they are making these reforms in the Acts and Rules, "we from the national level are supporting it to make sure that it works."She also informed that the ministry has started partnering with universities and educational institutions to set up education-to-employment career lounges.There is one such lounge in the National Institute of Career Services at Noida, she stated adding that the ministry wants to expand this to almost all the universities in the country.She said there are global collaborations for mobility of the workforce."We have partnerships as part of the G20 Skills Initiative. And we have bilateral agreements with certain countries including, for example, Japan and Germany for cross-border talent mobility. These agreements and these partnerships also could be leveraged for the work of the GCC," she added.