Market-based mechanisms assist in the abatement of excessive greenhouse gas emissions. We had postulated earlier that carbon markets are evolving into a complex 'climate change supermarket'. India is at the forefront of carbon forestry; however, the range of projects developed so far lacks versatility in terms of carbon pools, greenhouse gases, and intervention types. Based on the existing literature and field observations from two registered AR-CDM projects in Kashi and Mahoba forest divisions in Uttar Pradesh (India), questions were formulated for an expert survey. Through this survey of 43 experts, we assessed India's potential to lead in forest-based carbon markets and examined how well-prepared the institutional framework in India is to adopt new market-based mechanisms in carbon forestry and identify areas where improvements are needed. The individual ranking of experts was converted to a scoring matrix using reverse scores. As per the sum of the reverse scores obtained, forest-dependent people were revealed to be the most crucial strength, followed by forest governance. About 42% of the experts did not consider the measurement, reporting, and verification arrangements to berobust. Around 35% of the experts thought that there is a probability of more than 50% that India can meet its forest-related NDC goal. Of the 43 respondents, 56% believed that this goal can be met if international support is available. Out of 43, a total of 25 experts (58%) believed that India is somewhat ready for a domestic carbon market, while 17 experts (40%) believed that India is not prepared. Of the total, 72% of the experts foresee India as a leading country in the event of international carbon markets revival as an implementation of the Paris Agreement progress.