India's self-reliance in auto components

With the Centre's significant move in this direction with initiatives like Make in India and Atmanirbhar Bharat, the manufacturing sector received a great boost despite global headwinds, resulting in revenue generation and countless employment opportunities.

The world acknowledges the Indian economy as a global bright spot. The reasons behind this are many, but a key contributing factor is the Indian Government’s major push for domestic manufacturing to achieve self-reliance or to make the country Atmanirbhar, (self-reliant). With the Centre’s significant move in this direction with initiatives like Make in India and Atmanirbhar Bharat, the manufacturing sector received a great boost despite global headwinds, resulting in revenue generation and employment opportunities. The auto sector has become one of the biggest beneficiaries of the conducive business environment, so much so that India surpassed Japan in new auto sales to become the world’s third-largest auto-component market in 2022.

In recent years, India’s auto sector has pivoted its focus towards becoming self-reliant in terms of manufacturing by coming up with indigenous products and reducing its dependence on imports, especially from China. While achieving self-reliance in auto manufacturing is the right direction for the industry, to be able to do so, it is critical to ramp up domestic auto component manufacturing to come up with completely Indian-origin products. Moreover, it is the most opportune time to take steps in this direction as the Indian auto market is thriving, and the industry is expected to register a sales volume growth of 7%–9% in FY24, building on FY23’s robust momentum. To ensure that the rising demand is met locally, it becomes important to focus more on the auto components industry and domestic manufacturing in India.