ongoing projects Archives - BRIEF

Strategic Supply Chain Research – Critical Minerals

Rohit Gupta — Wed, 08 Jul 2026 08:49:33 +0000

ongoing projects

BRIEF conducted in-depth research and analysis for a major international trade and investment organization exploring supply chain pathways for critical minerals in the Indo-Pacific region.

The study involved primary stakeholder engagement with cross-border traders, freight operators, logistics intermediaries, port officials, and geopolitical analysts to map the operational and regulatory realities of emerging mineral corridors from Southeast Asia to South Asia. Research combined ground-level intelligence with open-source analysis to assess infrastructure viability, political risk, and cost economics across multiple transport routes.

Our research included a comprehensive corridor feasibility assessment, comparative cost structures across land and maritime routes, a PESTLE analysis covering macro and micro-level risks, and a regulatory landscape review spanning multiple jurisdictions. The study also examined the geopolitical dynamics shaping third-party access to frontier resource markets, including the influence of armed non-state actors, competing great power interests, and evolving export control regimes.

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Bridging Continents: The Strategic Case of Direct Air Connectivity between India and Western Australia

Rohit Gupta — Wed, 08 Jul 2026 08:48:16 +0000

ongoing projects

As India and Australia deepen their strategic partnership across trade, education, and people-to-people ties, the absence of direct air connectivity between India and Perth, Western Australia remains a significant structural gap. BRIEF is undertaking a focused research and advocacy initiative to build an evidence-based case for establishing a direct air route between Perth and key Indian cities.

Western Australia has a large and growing Indian diaspora, rising inbound tourism from India, and deepening bilateral trade under the India-Australia Economic Cooperation and Trade Agreement (ECTA). Despite this momentum, Indian travellers and businesses continue to rely on connecting flights through Southeast Asian or Middle Eastern hubs, adding hours to journeys and friction to what should be a natural corridor. A direct Perth–India route would be the shortest air link between the two countries, with significant implications for tourism, education, cargo, and business travel.

The initiative combines secondary research with on-the-ground stakeholder engagement in India and Western Australia across relevant industries such as the government, airlines, businesses and passengers.

The findings, presented as a policy that maps economic rationale, identifies priority Indian markets for route viability, and positions Perth as a compelling destination for Indian students, tourists, and businesses.

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Theme-Based Audit on Multimodal Transport and Logistics Initiatives (MMTAL) in Indian Railways

Rohit Gupta — Wed, 08 Jul 2026 08:47:08 +0000

ongoing projects

BRIEF was engaged by the National Council of Applied Economic Research (NCAER) to execute the beneficiary and stakeholder survey for the Theme-Based Audit on Multimodal Transport and Logistics Initiatives (MMTAL) in Indian Railways, conducted for the Office of the Principal Director of Audit, Railway, Mumbai (Comptroller and Auditor General of India).BRIEF carried out the primary fieldwork underpinning the audit’s assessment of how effectively Indian Railways’ multimodal and rail-linked freight initiatives are serving their intended users. The survey was designed to capture structured inputs on cost and efficiency, operational challenges, infrastructure and connectivity gaps, digital systems, and regulatory processes – feeding directly into the audit’s evaluation of the freight ecosystem and the ease of doing business in rail freight.

BRIEF completed the survey across seven strategically selected locations – Delhi, Mumbai, Kandla (Deendayal Port), Faridabad, Aurangabad (Daulatabad ICD), Manmad (the Nashik–Lasalgaon belt), and Kolkata. The fieldwork engaged a deliberately diverse stakeholder base with a particular focus on MSMEs, distinguishing between current rail users and non-users to surface adoption barriers, alongside logistics service providers and key industry associations.

The survey translated stakeholder experience into a structured, scored evidence base across the audit’s key themes – booking, scheduling and digital tracking; wagon and rake availability and terminal experience; cost and connectivity; and transit-time variability – complemented by qualitative observations gathered directly from commodity associations. The findings quantified both the appeal and the friction points of rail freight: a clear long-haul cost advantage (with a large majority of users finding rail cheaper than road) set against high first- and last-mile and ancillary costs, low confidence in digital tracking systems, peak-season rake shortages, terminal congestion and infrastructure bottlenecks, and significant transit-time unpredictability driven by en-route delays, fitness-examination constraints, and locomotive scheduling priorities. By distinguishing user from non-user perceptions and grounding each theme in stakeholder-reported scores and operational detail, BRIEF’s fieldwork gave NCAER and the Railway Audit office a robust, on-the-ground basis for assessing the performance of multimodal logistics initiatives and identifying the systemic barriers limiting a shift of freight to rail.

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Institutional Overview and Development of the GCC Customs Union

Rohit Gupta — Wed, 08 Jul 2026 08:46:06 +0000

ongoing projects

BRIEF, working jointly with the Corporate Group (Dubai), was commissioned by the Japan External Trade Organization (JETRO) to prepare an institutional assessment of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) Customs Union and its evolving trade architecture. The study responded to the resumption of Japan–GCC Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) negotiations and the strong interest among Japanese firms in deepening trade with the region: with the GCC’s common external tariff of five percent applying to a large share of Japan’s exports, the engagement was designed to give Japanese companies and policymakers an accurate, current understanding of the customs union as they weighed future business in the Gulf. The completed report was delivered to JETRO in its specified presentation format, accompanied by the full set of underlying data, charts, and graphs in editable form.

The assessment delivered a comprehensive overview of the GCC Customs Union spanning its legal framework, governance arrangements, and recent operational developments—including the move to a twelve-digit HS classification—while profiling tariff structures and the sensitive sectors and high-tariff product lines of individual member states. Beyond the institutional picture, the study examined the practical frictions in how the union operates, including rules-of-origin verification, customs clearance and duty collection, intra-regional logistics, divergences in national policy, and the coexistence of bilateral EPAs with GCC-wide arrangements. It further traced the union’s external FTA landscape and the implications of these dynamics for Japanese companies, identifying concrete pathways for enhanced Japan–GCC trade engagement at both the bloc and member-state levels.

To build this picture, the team combined structured secondary research—drawing on public-domain sources, paid databases, country reports, and academic literature—with primary stakeholder engagement across GCC customs authorities, the policy establishment, trade and industry associations, and country trade representatives. The work was sequenced through an inception meeting, tool development, thematic analysis, and an interim report at the three-week mark, with insights from stakeholder interactions feeding directly into the final analysis. The joint BRIEF–Corporate Group team brought to the assignment prior work on the GCC Customs Union’s structure and governance, extensive experience with customs procedures and trade facilitation as long-standing advisors to the Government of India, and an established working relationship with JETRO across India and the wider region—enabling the study to deliver both institutional depth and practical, business-relevant guidance to JETRO and its stakeholders.

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Impact Assessment of the Quality Control Order (2021) on Toys – BIS Product Certification Scheme-I

Rohit Gupta — Wed, 08 Jul 2026 08:44:50 +0000

ongoing projects

BRIEF was commissioned by the Centre for WTO Studies (CWS), Indian Institute of Foreign Trade, to conduct the Impact Assessment of the Quality Control Order (2021) on Toys, a study examining the effects of the Toys Quality Control Order (QCO) issued by the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT). The study assesses how mandatory BIS certification under the QCO has affected the quality and safety of toys manufactured, imported, and sold in India, along with its wider implications for the toy ecosystem – evaluating both the regulatory benefits and the compliance burden borne by industry. Findings from the study are to be submitted to the Department of Commerce, Government of India.

BRIEF designed and executed a nationwide, multi-stakeholder field survey spanning four regions and India’s principal toy-manufacturing and trading clusters: the North (Delhi-NCR, including the Greater Noida Toy City, and Rajasthan’s soft-toy and traditional-toy clusters), the South (Tamil Nadu, centred on Chennai with cluster coverage in Madurai and Thanjavur), the East (West Bengal, including the Natungram wooden-toy cluster and the Salt Lake Light Engineering Park), and the West (Maharashtra – India’s largest toy-exporting state – covering Nashik, Solapur, and the Mumbai-Thane belt). Region selection was grounded in the location of manufacturing hubs, GI-tagged traditional-toy clusters, and trade concentrations, with fieldwork sequenced across the manufacturing and retail calendar and routed to named manufacturers, trading firms, and industry associations in each cluster.

The assessment captured the perspectives of the full range of stakeholders touched by the QCO, gathering primary data through a prescribed instrument from consumers, manufacturers, trading firms, retailers, testing laboratories, policy experts, and health experts, supported by engagement with toy-industry associations and state industrial development corporations. By structuring the sample to weight each region toward its dominant role – manufacturing, trade, or traditional production – BRIEF was able to surface how the certification regime has played out differently for domestic manufacturers, importers, traders, procurement agencies, and end-consumers. The resulting evidence base equips CWS and the Department of Commerce to evaluate the QCO’s impact on product quality and safety, identify compliance challenges across the value chain, and inform future refinements to India’s toy product-certification framework.

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Assessment of Logistics Cost in India FY 2023-24

Rohit Gupta — Wed, 08 Jul 2026 08:39:46 +0000

ongoing projects

BRIEF supported the National Council of Applied Economic Research (NCAER) and the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT), Ministry of Commerce and Industry, Government of India, in conducting the Assessment of Logistics Cost in India FY 2023–24.

Mr. Afaq Hussain served as Co-Author and expert consultant on the report, contributing to the study’s analytical framework and findings. The study aimed to estimate India’s total logistics cost through a comprehensive, scientifically grounded methodology – measuring cost at an aggregate level, on a per-tonne-per-kilometre basis, and as a percentage of the value of produce – in support of the National Logistics Policy’s goal of reducing logistics costs and strengthening national competitiveness.

NCAER engaged BRIEF as the field-survey execution agency, responsible for primary data collection across India under the continuous field supervision and guidance of the NCAER team. Working within the study’s hybrid (top-down and bottom-up) framework, BRIEF conducted an in-person, nationwide stakeholder survey covering the full spectrum of logistics players, including road transporters, warehousing operators, freight forwarders, terminal operators, and agents from ICDs, CHAs, and CFSs, alongside liners and other key persons in the logistics chain. Fieldwork spanned the five study regions—North, South, East, West, and North-East—with origin-destination routes drawn from e-way bill data and structured to ensure broad geographic and commodity coverage across more than a thousand unique origin-destination pairs.

The central contribution of BRIEF’s fieldwork was the granular cost-component data that allowed total logistics cost to be unbundled into its constituent drivers. The survey decomposed road transportation cost into fuel, toll charges, driver wages, informal payments, and a residual category spanning maintenance, insurance, permits, miscellaneous costs, and operator margins. This breakdown established fuel as by far the largest single cost driver at roughly 41 percent of total logistics cost, with driver wages near 8 percent, toll charges around 7 percent, and informal payments close to 4 percent – the last offering a quantified measure of regulatory and on-road inefficiency. Because the data were captured at the route level, BRIEF was able to render these component shares not only nationally but region-by-region across the North, South, East, and West, exposing how the cost structure shifts with geography.

Beyond the component split, BRIEF’s data fed the study’s core cost metrics: average cost per kilometre and average cost per tonne per kilometre, disaggregated by region, distance band, commodity (including electrical appliances, food products, fruits and vegetables, textiles, and iron and steel), and individual origin-destination corridor, complemented by warehousing cost data and a region-to-region cost matrix. Together, these primary-data findings gave NCAER and DPIIT the evidence base to pinpoint the principal drivers of logistics cost, quantify regional and commodity-level variation, and identify the inefficiencies impeding cargo movement – feeding directly into the national logistics cost estimate and the study’s data-driven policy recommendations.

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Measurement of Cost of Regulation in India – Eastern Region

briefindia — Fri, 16 Jan 2026 22:49:13 +0000

ongoing projects

BRIEF supported the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT), Ministry of Commerce and Industry, Government of India, in conducting the Measurement of Cost of Regulation (CoR) study across five eastern states—Odisha, Jharkhand, West Bengal, Chhattisgarh, and Bihar. The study aimed to systematically quantify the time, financial, and procedural burden faced by businesses while complying with regulatory approvals and licences, and to identify opportunities to streamline processes and improve the ease of doing business.

The assessment covered 13 key regulatory services, including land allotment, building and factory plan approvals, fire and factory licences, environmental clearances, consents to establish and operate, and utility connections. BRIEF implemented a robust mixed-methods approach, combining large-scale quantitative surveys of enterprises with focus group discussions involving industry stakeholders and experts. The analysis examined time costs, substantive compliance costs, intermediary costs, statutory fees, inspection practices, and delay-related impacts, highlighting systemic inefficiencies, reliance on intermediaries, documentation challenges, and digital platform constraints.

Findings from the multi-state assessment provided comparative, evidence-based insights into regulatory performance across states and informed actionable recommendations on process simplification, digitisation, inter-departmental coordination, and service-level standardisation. The study contributed to DPIIT’s broader reform agenda by supporting data-driven policy decisions to reduce compliance burden and strengthen regulatory governance at the state and national levels.

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Mid-Term Evaluation of Watershed Development Component (PMKSY–WDC 2.0), Haryana

briefindia — Fri, 16 Jan 2026 22:47:17 +0000

ongoing projects

BRIEF carried out a mid-term evaluation of the Watershed Development Component under Pradhan Mantri Krishi Sinchayee Yojana (PMKSY–WDC 2.0) for the State Level Nodal Agency (SLNA), Rural Development Department, Government of Haryana. The study covered five districts—Bhiwani, Charkhi Dadri, Gurugram, Mahendragarh, and Yamuna Nagar—across nine watershed projects, assessing progress over a total project area of 31,221 hectares with an outlay of ₹80.59 crore.

The evaluation adopted a mixed-methods approach, combining structured household surveys, focus group discussions, key informant interviews, participatory rural appraisal tools, and GIS and remote sensing-based geospatial analysis to assess physical, financial, ecological, and socio-economic outcomes. BRIEF evaluated implementation processes, institutional arrangements, fund utilisation, asset creation, and governance mechanisms, with a strong focus on water security, soil and moisture conservation, agricultural productivity, livelihood enhancement, and community participation. The assessment generated evidence-based findings on achievements, implementation gaps, and sustainability prospects, and provided actionable recommendations to strengthen programme execution, optimise resource use, and support the long-term resilience of watershed interventions in Haryana.

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National Level Monitoring (NLM) – Regular Monitoring, Phase I (2025–26)

briefindia — Fri, 16 Jan 2026 22:43:59 +0000

ongoing projects

BRIEF conducted district-level monitoring under the National Level Monitoring (NLM) system for the Ministry of Rural Development and Ministry of Panchayati Raj, Government of India, as part of Regular Monitoring 2025–26, Phase I, covering districts in Uttar Pradesh (Raebareli, Siddharth Nagar, Prayagraj, and Pratapgarh) and Punjab (Pathankot and Hoshiarpur). The assignment aimed to independently assess the implementation, transparency, and effectiveness of key rural development programmes through third-party monitoring.

The monitoring exercise followed the prescribed NLM framework and guidelines, involving field visits to selected blocks, gram panchayats, and villages to verify assets, review programme processes, interact with beneficiaries and officials, and assess gender sensitivity in implementation. BRIEF evaluated multiple flagship schemes including MGNREGS, PMAY-G, NSAP, DAY-NRLM, PMGSY, PMKSY–WDC, DDU-GKY, RSETIs, SVAMITVA, and Panchayati Raj institutions. Findings from the monitoring visits were consolidated into district-level reports, providing evidence-based observations, good practices, gaps, and actionable recommendations to support improved programme implementation, accountability, and service delivery.

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Baseline Assessment of Pre-Consumer Textile Waste Management, Ludhiana

briefindia — Fri, 16 Jan 2026 22:41:01 +0000

ongoing projects

A study on pre-consumer textile waste management was conducted in Ludhiana, Punjab, India’s largest textile manufacturing hub, for the Council on Energy, Environment and Water (CEEW). The study focused on understanding the scale, composition, and management of pre-consumer textile waste generated across spinning, processing, dyeing, and garment units, and examining existing handling practices, infrastructure gaps, and regulatory challenges within the industrial ecosystem.

The assessment adopted a quantitative, stratified survey approach, covering approximately 350–400 textile units across different industry types, pollution categories, and enterprise sizes. BRIEF designed and implemented digital CAPI-based surveys, engaged with industry associations, waste handlers, recyclers, and government authorities, and carried out rigorous quality control during field implementation. The study generated a robust evidence base on waste flows, stakeholder roles, and systemic bottlenecks, and informed actionable recommendations to support circular economy interventions, policy design, and sustainable industrial waste management practices in Punjab’s textile sector.

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