The government is planning to open its education and legal services to foreigners, a move aimed at boosting the country’s services sector.

In a country like India, “this (the liberalisation of the services sector) is to be slow and should have a calibrated approach …It is at a very early stage. A road map has been prepared,” Commerce Secretary Rita Teaotia told PTI.

Explaining the country’s approach to open education sector, the secretary said, in the beginning, opening online courses could be an option.

“Indira Gandhi National Open University is doing something. Some professional bodies are also offering online courses. So, when we have such reputed technical institutions, more online courses can make the training they offer accessible to other countries. So, this could be one step,” she said.

About opening legal services for foreign players, she said the Commerce Ministry’s intention is to work with Bar Council of India (BCI) to move in a direction which is “calibrated and always reciprocal”. The government is also in consultation with the Society for Indian Law Firms for this.

“…so the first step should be to look at our domestic sector and making an environment which allows for the growth of our legal services sector,” she said.

She said the road map developed by the Department of Commerce with stakeholders is to first permit “multi-professional firms to come in, and to allow them to increase size of the firms”.

“So, these could be early stage reforms. Once we do that, in the next stage we can have consultation with the BCI,” she added.

Opening up of these two sectors is under discussion of the Committee of Secretaries.

The UK and the US have been pushing India to open up the sector to foreign firms.

The Advocates Act, which is administered by the BCI, provides for foreign lawyers or law firms to visit India on a reciprocal basis for temporary periods to advise their clients on foreign law and diverse international legal issues.