NEW DELHI: An American trade mission due to commence on Monday, for exploring business opportunities in the infrastructure sector, has come under a cloud. This follows a communication from the commerce ministry to its counterpart in the US that the mission fell foul of the WTO framework under which architects could be provided market access in each other's country only after a bilateral agreement relating to them had been signed. 

The absence of such a bilateral agreement could have been similarly held against other infrastructure-related professionals such as civil engineers, town planners and builders, who are all included in the trade mission. If the government still expressed concern only about architects, it was because, among the various professionals associated with the infrastructure sector, they alone have a statutory regulator in India. 

It was at the instance of the regulator, Council of Architecture (CoA), that the commerce ministry issued an office memorandum on January 24, affirming that the presence of architects in the impending trade mission was impermissible as India and US were yet to arrive at a "reciprocal arrangement". Recalling that another delegation had already visited India in October, the memorandum said that the matter be taken up with the US administration so that any "further violation of the existing regulatory framework does not take place by the forthcoming visit of the US trade mission to solicit architectural business in India".