For decades, India’s biggest audit and consulting mandates – IPO due diligence, cross-border M&A, forensic investigations, sprawling multinational audits – have flowed to one of four names: Deloitte, PwC, EY or KPMG. India produces some of the most sought-after chartered accountants in the world, many of whom rise to partner at these firms. Yet the country has never built a domestic accounting or consulting firm of comparable scale. That anomaly is now the subject of a deliberate, government-backed reform push – one that is moving from political rhetoric into the actual rulebook governing the profession.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi first posed the question in 2017, asking why Indian accounting, legal and financial firms couldn’t become global leaders the way Indian professionals already do individually. He returned to it pointedly in 2026, asking why, if Indians already lead the world’s top companies, companies built by Indians couldn’t lead the world too. Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman gave the idea institutional urgency in 2024, challenging the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI) at its Bihar chapter to make Big Four-scale Indian firms part of its 100-day agenda under the Viksit Bharat @2047 vision – India’s roadmap to becoming a developed economy by the centenary of its independence.
ICAI’s response was to set up a dedicated Aggregation of CA Firms Committee (ACAFC), chaired by CA Satish Kumar Gupta. The scale it is working against is stark: India has roughly 103,000 registered CA firms, but nearly 73 per cent are one-person proprietorships and only 74 firms have more than 20 partners. GST data tells a similar story – proprietorships make up almost 80 per cent of India’s taxpayer base by number but contribute only about 13 per cent of total collections, underlining just how fragmented Indian professional services remain relative to the size of the economy they serve. Part of this fragmentation is structural: the Chartered Accountants Act 1949 was written for an era of solo practitioners and it has long barred CA firms from most forms of advertising and severely limited the corporate structures firms could adopt – constraints global consulting networks were largely free of, once they moved offshore.
Eight pillars of bigness
ICAI frames the goal not merely as size but as capability, talking of ‘bigness’ in terms of eight pillars: specialised depth, multi-disciplinary breadth, the ability to attract and retain talent, capacity to invest in technology at institutional scale, governance systems that outlast individual partners, consistency of quality across teams, national and international delivery reach and continuity – firms built to endure across generations rather than dissolve when a founding partner retires. Getting there has meant a steady stream of new guidelines since 2021: rules allowing firms to network under alliance, lead-firm, or network models without merging outright; a revised framework for practising in corporate form; guidelines enabling CA LLPs to aggregate and pool resources; and, in 2024, a clear framework for firm mergers and demergers, giving practices both a path to consolidate and a mechanism to split apart if a merger doesn’t work.
The momentum is visible in the numbers. Roughly 1,000 firm mergers were approved between February and August 2026 alone and 128 networking arrangements were registered in the same window, a bulk of them coming under the ‘network model’ that lets firms pool expertise while keeping their individual identities. Firm registrations between February and September 2026 added over 4,150 new firms and 18 new management consultancy companies were registered, taking the total to 249. ICAI is also preparing to launch ‘CA Setu’ – a technology platform designed to help CAs and CA firms discover opportunities for mergers, networking, LLP aggregation, referrals and specialised collaboration – effectively a matchmaking layer for consolidation across the profession.
Two regulatory issues dominate the reform debate. The first is advertising. CA firms have long been barred from most self-promotion – no flashy signage, no aggressive branding – on the principle that professional reputation and not marketing should drive client acquisition. Global Big Four firms face similar restrictions on pure audit advertising, but have historically used their unrestricted consulting arms to build brand visibility that indirectly benefits their audit business – a channel Indian CA firms simply haven’t had. That is now changing.
In December 2025, ICAI’s council approved amendments to the code of ethics, easing advertising norms, alongside the landmark ICAI (global networking) Guidelines, 2025, which the institute itself described as a significant step toward building big Indian firms. Confirming the guidelines had been formally notified in early 2026, CA Prasanna Kumar D, and the current ICAI president, clarified that any overseas network wishing to collaborate with Indian CA firms must now register with the institute – a safeguard intended to keep such tie-ups transparent even as they open up.
Kumar while briefing the media on the various reforms being undertaken, noted that the changes come against the backdrop of wider government efforts to build homegrown accounting firms capable of competing at global scale. Kumar has framed the broader agenda in similar terms elsewhere, describing chartered accountants as pillars of the Indian economy and pledging the profession’s continued partnership in nation-building, as India works toward becoming a developed country by 2047.
The second issue is the scope of services CAs can offer without further deregulation. ICAI is pushing for amendments to the CA Act enabling measured deregulation of non-assurance services, giving chartered accountants more flexibility to compete in the broader advisory market the way global networks already do. Alongside this, the 2021 networking guidelines are being revised to bring company secretaries, cost accountants, advocates, engineers, architects, and actuaries into a multidisciplinary ‘B1’ networking model – effectively building the kind of breadth global consulting giants take for granted.
Earlier attempts at collaboration had a mixed record and it’s worth remembering that rule changes alone don’t guarantee success. When ICAI first allowed CA firms to network under a shared identity years ago, uptake was underwhelming – fewer than 200 firms signed on, likely reflecting partners’ reluctance to cede control or scepticism that collaboration would boost earnings. Even today, more than 100 Indian audit firms hold international affiliations they largely cannot use for branding or active business development, thanks to the advertising restrictions now under revision. Changing the rulebook is necessary, but culture and incentive structures inside small, partner-owned firms will matter just as much.
Level playing field
The push has also not gone unchallenged by the incumbents it may eventually squeeze. The Big Four firms operating through Indian member firms have reportedly raised concerns about proposed registration requirements for their overseas network partners and about potential curbs on advertising and sponsorship tied to their global brands. The friction reflects a genuine structural stake: any rule that makes it easier for domestic firms to consolidate and compete for large mandates could, over time, chip away at the market share the Big Four is holding in India today. ICAI and the government have maintained publicly that the intent is a level playing field rather than an anti-incumbent measure, though how that plays out – particularly around registration requirements for foreign networks – remains to be tested.
ICAI casts the overall effort as a three-way division of labour: the institute builds the regulatory pathways, individual firms build the actual capability, while the government steps in where only it has real leverage. Its wish list for government partnership runs to eight items – formal recognition of aggregation structures, infrastructure and capital support, removal of impediments limiting Indian firms’ access to government consulting work, treating technology enablement as a national priority, an international brand for Indian professional services, reciprocity in cross-border professional agreements and tax incentives for both aggregation and global tie-ups.
An Indian Big Four may still be some years away – even the country’s 14 largest firms, each of which has more than 50 partners, are a fraction of the size of Deloitte, PwC, EY and KPMG. But the groundwork being laid is real: legislative amendments in motion, hundreds of mergers a year, a digital matchmaking platform on the way and sustained backing from both the Prime Minister’s Office and the finance ministry. For the first time in nearly 80 years, the rulebook that kept Indian accounting fragmented is being actively rewritten – and with that momentum building, the next decade looks set to bring Indian firms closer than ever to competing on the global stage.
Highlights
PM Modi and FM Sitharaman have both pushed ICAI to build Indian firms capable of rivalling the global Big Four – Deloitte, PwC, EY and KPMG.
India’s CA sector remains deeply fragmented: of ~103,000 registered firms, nearly 73 per cent are one-person proprietorships, and only 74 have more than 20 partners.
Consolidation is already picking up pace, with roughly 1,000 firm mergers and 128 networking arrangements approved between February and August 2026 alone.
A wave of new ICAI guidelines – on networking, corporate-form practice, LLP aggregation, mergers and demergers and global networking – is reshaping how firms can scale and collaborate.
A digital platform, ‘CA Setu’, is in the works to help firms find merger, networking, and specialisation partners.
The push isn’t friction-free – the Big Four firms operating in India have raised concerns over proposed registration norms for their overseas network partners.
ICAI has laid out an eight-point wish-list for government support, from capital infusion and tax incentives to easier access to government consulting work.
Even so, India’s largest firms remain a rounding error against the Big Four’s multi-billion-dollar global revenues – scale is still a distant goal.