India’s State Drives 120-Product Manufacturing Push

India’s government has identified around 120 products for a domestic manufacturing push, putting the state at the center of efforts to reduce import dependence. The Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade is leading the exercise, which spans goods from chemicals and pharmaceutical inputs to construction equipment and aerospace products.

The plan also covers a separate effort to develop tunnel boring machines after China restricted their shipments. The government is discussing measures with other agencies, and its proposed interventions would shape how selected products compete with overseas suppliers, how companies tackle cost disadvantages, and whether local research receives support.

The State Chooses What Gets Built

The products under consideration include acetic acid and other chemicals, pharmaceutical products and inputs, medical-technology items, machine tools, some textile looms, construction equipment, cranes, and aerospace-sector products used for maintenance, repair and operations. The list also includes some consumer goods, such as products in the footwear value chain, people familiar with the discussions told The Times of India.

The first planned intervention is short-term protection for identified products competing with overseas suppliers, especially China. The stated aim is to support them until companies diversify supply sources. According to the article, the government used a similar approach for mobile phones in their initial years.

A second set of measures would tackle cost disadvantages with incentives. These could depend on capital investment, phase in over time, or possibly link to turnover. That puts public policy in the position of deciding which domestic production costs merit support and under what terms.

The government is also weighing research and development assistance for products that need local development because the required technology isn’t available. These are government-led interventions; the article describes no worker-led or community-run production effort, mutual-aid network, or direct-action campaign tied to the push.

Local Production, Imported Dependence

Over the past six to eight years, the government has backed domestic and international companies across pharmaceuticals, electronics, semiconductors, solar-power equipment, and white goods to encourage local production. Much of the funding has flowed through production-linked incentive schemes, two semiconductor missions, and a scheme to increase domestic production of electronic components, as demand for inputs climbed after phone manufacturing expanded.

Battery production shows the limits of what the article calls local production. Companies that have begun making batteries locally still import cells from China and sell battery packs, while companies across the border retain control of the production chain and technology. The article describes a similar experience with solar panels. A product assembled or sold locally, then, doesn’t necessarily mean its production chain or technology has shifted into local control.

Import Shocks Set the Agenda

The push forms part of the government’s Atmanirbhar Bharat strategy, which drew renewed attention after the West Asia crisis left several critical items in short supply locally because of import dependence. During COVID, disruptions also hit supplies of several products, including medical inputs, when China controlled production chains.

Those disruptions provide the stated context for the current push: supply failures exposed reliance on production chains controlled elsewhere, and the response is another round of state-directed support for domestic manufacturing. The article lays out protection, incentives, and research assistance, but it doesn’t describe electoral or legislative proposals, name institutional nonprofit helpers, or identify a grassroots alternative. The decisions described remain in the hands of government agencies and the companies whose production the schemes aim to encourage.