From Regulatory Requirement to Operational Readiness: An Engineering-Oriented DPDPA Compliance Framework for Indian MSMEs
The Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023 applies in full to India's MSMEs, yet most small manufacturers, retailers and service businesses were never built with a legal or privacy function capable of meeting that obligation. Research finds this gap to be structural: one survey found only 2.5% of MSMEs understand the Act, while compliance costs can range from ₹5–25 lakh to over ₹50 lakh for data-heavy operations, against penalties of up to ₹250 crore for non-compliance.
Developed by the Shridhar InfoSec Solutions R&D Wing after six months of research combining secondary analysis with structured practitioner engagements across 16 MSMEs in Gujarat and Maharashtra, this whitepaper moves beyond legal checklists to propose three original operational frameworks: Continuous Compliance Engineering (CCE), a lifecycle for embedding compliance into existing business processes; the Cybersecurity-to-Compliance Mapping Model (CCMM), linking each DPDPA obligation to the technical capability and evidence needed to satisfy it; and the DPDPA Operational Readiness Index (DORI), a ten-domain maturity assessment model.
Backed by a case study and a phased 90-day implementation roadmap (Discover and Map, Engineer Core Controls, then Monitor, Measure and Improve), this research gives resource-constrained organizations a practical, evidence-based path to sustainable DPDPA readiness.
