PLI not a permanent policy feature: Rajeev Chandrasekhar

The minister, at the Mint-Zetwerk Smart Manufacturing Summit 2023, said the PLI should not be thought of as a permanent solution.

- Gulveen Aulakh

“PLI, I don’t think should be thought of as a permanent let us say part of the equation of being a manufacturing economy. It is a way to bootstrap the economy or bootstrap the players. But it will more than be compensated by all of the other efficiencies that these volumes and these gains will create over time," he said.

He noted that PLI was addressing the disadvantage between India and its cost structure in the value chain versus Vietnam or China. But there were more factors such as ease of doing business, rationalization of levies, import and export tariffs and creation of logistics ecosystem that will be responsible for taking India closer to its goal by 2026.

“Think of PLI as the period during which we are transitioning from a less than fully competitive economy to a fully competitive manufacturing (economy). So the PLI will take care of that interim period. But the economy, the efficiency, the competitiveness, the skills, the logistics, costs, all of that will eventually kick in and make us competitive," he said.