Commerce & Industry Minister Piyush Goyal chaired a review meeting of the government’s ambitious ₹1.97 lakh crore Production Linked Incentive (PLI) scheme on Tuesday to take stock of its implementation so far and discuss ways to improve overall performance, especially in the laggard sectors.
“The list of participants included officials from all line Ministries and Departments, Niti Aayog and Project Management Agencies as well as representatives from the industry including the sectors covered under the scheme,” a person tracking the matter said.
Also read: Editorial. Time for PLI 2.0
About the scheme
The PLI scheme was announced in 2020 to attract investments in 14 sunrise and strategic schemes with incentives spread over a five-year period. So far, the scheme has moved slowly for most sectors, except a handful such as large-scale electronics comprising mobile phones, pharmaceuticals, and food processing. Disbursals of incentives so far have been around ₹2,900 crore out of the corpus of ₹1.97 lakh crore.
The laggard sectors where disbursals are yet to happen include white goods, automobiles, auto parts, textiles, solar PV modules and ACC battery.
PLI criteria for various sectors, including thresholds on investments, production, sales, degree of localisation, inputs used and many more, should be simplified to ensure that the scheme is not misused, per an analysis of the PLI scheme carried out by Ajay Srivastava, former trade official and founder think tank Global Trade Research Initiative (GTRI).