Manufacturing's Second Act: PLI Schemes at the Five-Year Mark
Production-linked incentives were meant to jump-start factories. Half a decade in, the question is whether they build lasting competitiveness or dependency on subsidies.
Electronics assembly lines in western India now run three shifts where warehouses stood a decade ago. PLI disbursements explain part of that transformation — but so do logistics upgrades and a tighter focus on component localization.
The harder test arrives when incentives taper. Firms that treated PLI as margin padding will exit; those that reinvested in supplier development may survive the cliff. Policy makers should measure success by export quality, not headline investment pledges.