India’s proposed new accessibility standards: What businesses can do today
For decades, accessibility in India was viewed as a thoughtful addition, not as something essential. That’s now changing.
The Government of India has introduced draft accessibility standards (PDF) that will reshape how people design, build, and experience the world.
These wide-ranging draft standards cover everything from commonplace physical items such as kitchen tools, shoes, and elevators to the websites, kiosks, and mobile apps we engage with every day.
When implemented, these standards will make accessibility a required part of daily consumer life—the norm, not the exception.
This is more than regulation. It’s a mindset shift, and India has the opportunity to demonstrate its commitment to innovation and inclusivity on the world stage. For business leaders, this is the moment to prepare, to adapt, and to lead. Those who act early will be the visionaries. The rest will just be trying to keep up with requirements.
What’s new
India’s draft accessibility standards represent a major step forward in how accessibility is defined and managed. The new approach focuses on three main ideas: making everyday items physically accessible, prioritizing digital accessibility, and adopting a holistic approach that treats physical and digital experiences as interconnected.
Extending physical accessibility to everyday life
For the first time, accessibility rules will apply to more than 20 types of everyday products used by millions, such as kitchenware, clothing, furniture, medical supplies, childcare products, packaging, and more. The aim is to make these items easy, safe, and inclusive for everyone, regardless of ability. Accessible examples include utensils that are easy to grip, packaging with tactile and Braille labels, adjustable furniture, and shoes with accessible fasteners.
Prioritizing digital accessibility
The new standards acknowledge that digital products and services, such as payment terminals, kiosks, mobile apps, and websites, are now as commonplace as physical products. The draft standards require all digital interfaces to work with assistive technologies like screen readers and voice commands, use high-contrast visuals and tactile feedback, and offer audio instructions.
A holistic, unified accessibility framework
Implicit in India’s new draft standards for accessibility is a key premise: everyday life doesn’t distinguish between physical and digital experiences, so accessibility shouldn’t either. For example, the new standards introduce a rating system that will be applied to both physical and digital products. Based on the POUR principles (Perceivable, Operable, Understandable, and Robust), products will be tested and rated from Level A to AAA based on how accessible they are. Regular audits and penalties will help ensure that companies follow the rules. The standards require that people with disabilities be involved at every stage, from design to testing, to ensure products are truly usable.
Why this matters for businesses
Together, these changes extend and expand how accessibility is understood and achieved in India, and establish a new set of rules for how accessibility is required throughout everyday life.
These changes will have a direct impact on organizations that produce physical and digital products, services, and experiences.
Your offerings will be tested and rated, and failure to comply will introduce potentially serious financial, legal, and reputational risk for your organization.
To successfully meet these standards and mitigate these risks, you’ll need to be proactive and focus on early planning, design, development, and ongoing testing.
What can your business do today?
While we don’t know the exact timeline for when these new standards will be implemented, momentum for digital accessibility in India is rapidly increasing. It seems prudent to assume more changes are coming.
We’ve already seen significant moves from the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) on accessibility, as well as from the Supreme Court, who, in April 2025, delivered a landmark ruling that affirmed that digital access is a fundamental right under Article 21 of the Indian Constitution (Right to Life), and the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS), who introduced IS 17802 in 2023, which strengthens existing provisions regarding ICT products and services.
In light of this momentum, your organization has a choice: start planning now and be ready when the changes come, or wait and then try to react fast enough to avoid any negative consequences.
Given that non-compliance involves serious risk—including fines, recalls, and public disclosure—the choice should be clear. Consider your team’s current velocity as well. How long will it take your organization to get educated on digital accessibility, equip teams with the right tools and processes, and start delivering results? You don’t want to still be figuring these issues out when the new standards are already being implemented.
Proactivity is going to be especially important because the new standards will involve rigorous testing by accredited bodies and a rating system that will clearly label products from Level A to Level AAA.
Let’s look at some basic steps your organization can start taking today to ensure you’re prepared when the new standards are implemented.
- Integrate accessibility checks into existing processes
Automate accessibility scans through tools in your development pipeline to catch problems with code before release. Combine these with manual testing using assistive technology such as screen readers and keyboard navigation to cover gaps that automation misses. These steps help you find and fix accessibility problems continuously—not just at the finish line.
- Embrace a shift-left approach
Shift accessibility testing and remediation to the earliest design and development phases—in other words, shift left. By catching issues early and fixing them before they hit production (or worse, your customers!), you save time on costly remediation. You’ll also have fewer issues overall, which means less risk.
- Conduct audits and prioritize fixes
Use audits or gap analysis to determine where you have accessibility issues, and then prioritize them based on impact and effort. For example, prioritizing easier fixes can help you quickly make significant progress, generating momentum. Prioritizing fixes on high-traffic pages, on the other hand, may be more complex, but the improvements will have a larger impact.
- Provide role-specific training
Provide role-based training for all roles, including designers, developers, and QA testers, as well as your marketing, customer support, and product teams. Individuals and teams can sign up for modern accessibility courses (like those at Deque University), attend webinars, or work with invited expert trainers. Accessibility is a company-wide concern, and having cross-functional alignment and knowledge increases efficiency and efficacy.
The above are some foundational best practices for accessibility.
Something else you’ll want to get ahead of is having people with disabilities involved in your processes. The new standards require collaboration with people with disabilities throughout the entire product lifecycle.
Finally, it’s important to assess accessibility through the lens of risk, and understand that risk comes in many forms, including:
- Legal: Failure to make products and services accessible can expose your organization to lawsuits, as well as the fines, recalls, and exposure mentioned above.
- Financial: Financial risk goes beyond fines. If your organization embeds accessibility throughout your processes, and does not shift left, your likelihood of releasing inaccessible products goes up, which means your remediation costs go up. Market share is another factor. If your organization is exposed for not being accessible, that opens the door to accessible competitors to step into the breach and claim greater share, hitting your bottom line.
- Reputational: Reputational risk goes beyond public disclosure and potential loss of market share. Increasingly, people shop with their values, choosing organizations whose business values they believe align with their personal values. Businesses that prioritize inclusivity see increased brand loyalty. Businesses with poor reputations suffer.
Be a part of the bigger story
India is moving to expand accessibility into our everyday physical and digital lives. These new draft standards aim to make sure everyone, regardless of ability, can easily and safely use the products and services that are essential in our modern world.
These standards are not suggestions—they’re mandatory, enforceable requirements spanning 20 major product categories. They include features like Braille, tactile labels, audio instructions, and digital screen compatibility with assistive technologies.
For businesses in India, this is a bigger story than just a new layer of compliance boxes to tick off. This is a revolution in thinking about how our physical and digital lives interact, and what accessibility and inclusivity really means. The new standards make accessibility a mandatory component of our everyday lives. This is a radical process.
As a business leader, this is your chance to take your place at the vanguard. Yes, it’s about adopting processes and tools to streamline accessibility and save time and money at the product lifecycle level. Yes, it’s about proactively engaging and collaborating with people with disabilities. Yes, it’s about rigorous testing and continuous improvement.
But more than all that, it’s about being a leader in the new era of accessibility. India is taking its place on the global stage as a leader. Your business needs to be a part of that story.
Next steps with Deque
Deque has a proven track record of supporting organizations with interpreting new standards, strategizing compliance roadmaps, and implementing seamless accessibility workflows.
As a government-empanelled web accessibility auditor, Deque is uniquely positioned to help organizations interpret the draft requirements and develop practical compliance strategies.
Taking early action will not only reduce legal, financial, and reputational risk but also position your organization at the forefront of this new era of accessibility.
To learn more about these standards and how you can position your organization for success, contact Deque today.
