Twelve years is long enough to judge an industrial policy by its own stated objective rather than by its individual successes. Make in India set itself a number. The number has not moved.
Make in India completed twelve years on 25 September 2026, having been launched on 25 September 2014 with the ambition of making India a global hub for manufacturing, design and innovation. It began with 25 priority sectors and, under Make in India 2.0, now covers 27 sectors — 15 in manufacturing and 12 in services. Its guiding phrase is 'Minimum Government, Maximum Governance'.
The honest assessment requires holding two things at once, and an answer that manages only one of them is incomplete.
The target, and what happened to it
The initiative's headline objective was to raise manufacturing's share of GDP from around 17 per cent to 25 per cent. The original horizon was 2022; it was subsequently pushed to 2025 and beyond. A parallel target spoke of creating 100 million manufacturing jobs.
Manufacturing's share has not risen. Depending on whether the measure used is gross value added or GDP, and on the base year of the series, estimates place the share either broadly flat in the high-teens or slightly lower than it was in 2013-14. No reading of the data shows movement towards 25 per cent.
This is the central fact about Make in India at twelve, and stating it plainly is not a criticism of the initiative so much as a description of how hard the objective was. Raising manufacturing's share of GDP requires manufacturing to grow faster than the rest of the economy — and the rest of the Indian economy, particularly services, has itself grown quickly. A sector can expand substantially in absolute terms and still lose share if the denominator expands faster. Manufacturing output, exports and investment have all risen over twelve years; the ratio has not.
There is a second structural reason worth naming. India's growth has been services-led since the 1990s, and the country did not pass through the manufacturing-heavy phase that East Asian economies did. Some economists describe this as premature deindustrialisation — the manufacturing share peaking at a lower level and an earlier stage of development than it did for earlier industrialisers. Whether that is a permanent feature or a reversible one is genuinely contested, and a candidate is entitled to argue either way provided the argument engages with the data.
What did change
Dismissing the initiative on the share alone would be equally incomplete, because the composition of what India makes has shifted in ways the aggregate ratio conceals.
Electronics is the clearest case. India has moved from importing most of the mobile phones it consumes to assembling the great majority domestically and exporting a substantial volume. The live policy question is no longer whether phones are made here but how much value is added here — the distinction we examined in our piece on the ₹62,500 crore bet on making phones, not assembling them. Assembly captures a thin slice of a device's value; components, displays and semiconductors capture the rest, which is why later schemes have targeted components rather than finished goods.
Defence production has risen substantially, with exports growing from a very low base, and a procurement architecture explicitly rewriting itself around domestic design — the categories set out in our explainer on the SAT-SAAW contract and Buy (Indian-IDDM).
Semiconductors moved from absent to under construction, with fabrication and assembly-and-test facilities approved and building. Pharmaceuticals were already strong and have deepened into bulk drugs, where import dependence on a single country was the exposure being addressed.
The supporting machinery has also been built out, and its components are examinable in their own right: the Production Linked Incentive (PLI) schemes, covered for textiles in our piece on Textile PLI Round III; the National Single Window System (NSWS) for clearances; PM GatiShakti, the GIS-based master plan for infrastructure coordination; and the India Industrial Land Bank. Newer schemes cover semiconductors, mobile phone components, industrial parks, specialty steel and rare-earth magnets.
Why PLI is a different instrument from what came before
The distinction between Make in India's approach and earlier Indian industrial policy is worth understanding, because it is the most likely descriptive question on the topic.
The pre-1991 model protected domestic manufacturers from imports through high tariffs and licensing, and left them to sell into a captive domestic market. The result was well documented: limited competition, limited scale, limited quality pressure and no export orientation.
PLI inverts the trigger. It pays an incentive calculated on incremental sales of goods actually manufactured in India, usually with investment and output thresholds attached. A firm that produces nothing receives nothing. The subsidy follows output, not permission, and the design intent is to reward performance rather than to shelter from competition.
The criticisms are real and should be stated alongside. PLI is sector-selective: the government picks sectors, and picking wrongly wastes money. Disbursement has lagged approvals across several schemes, partly because thresholds were not met. And there is a persistent question of additionality — whether incentivised investment would have happened anyway, which is almost impossible to establish either way. A candidate who names these is assessing an instrument rather than endorsing it.
What the constraint actually is
If the objective is manufacturing's share of output, the binding constraints are largely not the ones industrial policy addresses directly.
Scale and land. Manufacturing at competitive cost requires large plants, and land acquisition in India is slow, contested and expensive, with land a State subject and records often unclear.
Labour regulation and firm size. India's manufacturing employment is concentrated in very small firms, which are less productive and do not export. The four Labour Codes, in force since November 2025, were intended to address part of this.
Logistics cost. Moving goods within India has historically cost more as a share of value than in competing economies, which is what the corridor and multimodal programmes are aimed at.
Power reliability and quality. A factory that must run its own backup generation carries a cost its competitors do not.
Trade policy. Manufacturing at scale for export requires cheap, unrestricted access to imported inputs. Tariffs on intermediate goods protect one domestic industry at the cost of the industry that uses its output — which is why India's FTA programme and its manufacturing programme are more tightly linked than they appear.
None of these is solved by an incentive scheme, which is why the honest reading of twelve years is that Make in India has been more successful at changing what India makes than at changing how much of its economy manufacturing is. Both statements are true, and an answer needs both.
The investment-climate dimension is covered in our explainer on India as an investment destination, and the digital and semiconductor components in our piece on Digital India at eleven.
🔑 Revision block
- Launched: 25 September 2014; completed twelve years on 25 September 2026
- Original scope: 25 priority sectors
- Make in India 2.0: 27 sectors — 15 manufacturing and 12 services
- Guiding phrase: 'Minimum Government, Maximum Governance'
- Stated objective: raise manufacturing's share of GDP from about 17 per cent to 25 per cent, originally by 2022, later deferred; and create 100 million manufacturing jobs
- Outcome on the headline target: the share has not risen — broadly flat in the high-teens or slightly lower than 2013-14, depending on the measure
- Why the ratio did not move: manufacturing must grow faster than the rest of the economy to gain share, and services grew quickly; absolute growth is consistent with a falling share
- Premature deindustrialisation: the manufacturing share peaking at a lower level and earlier stage than for earlier industrialisers
- Where composition did change: electronics (phones assembled and exported at scale), defence production and exports, semiconductors from absent to under construction, bulk drugs
- The value-addition question: assembly captures a thin slice of device value; components and semiconductors capture the rest — hence later component-focused schemes
- Supporting machinery: PLI schemes, NSWS single window, PM GatiShakti (GIS-based master plan), India Industrial Land Bank
- How PLI differs from pre-1991 policy: incentive on incremental sales of goods manufactured in India, with investment and output thresholds — subsidy follows output, not licence; contrast with protection through tariffs and licensing
- Criticisms of PLI: sector selectivity, disbursement lagging approvals, and uncertain additionality
- Binding constraints on manufacturing share: land and scale, labour regulation and firm size, logistics cost, power reliability, tariffs on intermediate inputs
- Labour Codes: four codes, in force since November 2025
🎯 Practice MCQs
Q1. Make in India was launched on: (a) 15 August 2014 (b) 2 October 2014 (c) 25 September 2014 (d) 1 April 2015
→ (c) — the same date as Antyodaya Diwas.
Q2. Make in India 2.0 covers how many sectors? (a) 25 (b) 27 (c) 14 (d) 32
→ (b) — 15 in manufacturing and 12 in services.
Q3. The initiative's stated objective was to raise manufacturing's share of GDP to: (a) 20 per cent (b) 30 per cent (c) 22 per cent (d) 25 per cent
→ (d) — from around 17 per cent, originally by 2022.
Q4. A sector can grow substantially in absolute terms while its share of GDP falls because: (a) Absolute growth is always measured in nominal terms (b) The rest of the economy may be growing faster (c) Share is measured only at constant prices (d) GDP excludes manufacturing output
→ (b) — which is largely what happened here.
Q5. The Production Linked Incentive scheme differs from pre-1991 industrial policy principally in that it: (a) Protects domestic producers through higher tariffs (b) Requires industrial licensing before production (c) Pays an incentive on incremental sales of goods actually manufactured in India (d) Restricts foreign direct investment
→ (c) — the subsidy follows output rather than permission.
Q6. "Premature deindustrialisation" refers to: (a) Factories closing before recovering their investment (b) The manufacturing share peaking at a lower level and earlier stage of development than for earlier industrialisers (c) The shift of manufacturing from public to private ownership (d) Automation reducing manufacturing employment
→ (b)
Q7. PM GatiShakti is best described as: (a) A GIS-based national master plan for coordinated infrastructure planning (b) A credit guarantee scheme for manufacturers (c) A single-window clearance portal (d) A land acquisition fund
→ (a) — NSWS is the single-window clearance system.
Q8. A commonly cited criticism of PLI schemes is: (a) That they apply to all sectors indiscriminately (b) That they require firms to export their entire output (c) That disbursement has lagged approvals and additionality is hard to establish (d) That they are financed entirely by state governments
→ (c)
Q9. Tariffs on imported intermediate goods can hinder manufacturing exports because they: (a) Raise input costs for the domestic industry that uses those goods (b) Are prohibited under WTO rules (c) Reduce customs revenue (d) Apply only to finished products
→ (a) — which links trade policy to manufacturing policy more tightly than it appears.
Q10. Consider the following statements about Make in India at twelve years: 1. India's electronics sector has shifted substantially towards domestic assembly and export. 2. Manufacturing's share of GDP has risen close to the 25 per cent target. Which is/are correct? (a) 1 only (b) 2 only (c) Both 1 and 2 (d) Neither 1 nor 2
→ (a) — the composition of output changed; the ratio did not.
📋 How this gets asked (PYQ pattern)
Industrial policy is a standing topic in the CDS and OTA economy section, and Make in India is the single most asked initiative within it.
The date question is the easiest available mark: 25 September 2014. It is worth noting that this is also Antyodaya Diwas, Deendayal Upadhyaya's birth anniversary, and that DDU-GKY was announced on the same date — three facts on one day, which examiners occasionally combine.
The number question asks the sector count. Twenty-five originally, 27 under Make in India 2.0, split 15 manufacturing and 12 services. The split is the discriminating half.
The target question asks for the 25 per cent figure. Candidates who know the target but not that it has been missed give a weaker answer, because the follow-up in a descriptive paper is always whether it was achieved.
The scheme question groups PLI, NSWS, PM GatiShakti and the India Industrial Land Bank. Each has a one-line function, and confusing NSWS with GatiShakti is the commonest error — clearances against infrastructure planning.
For the descriptive paper, the question is usually some version of "assess Make in India". The structure that works is to separate the headline ratio, which did not move, from the composition of output, which changed substantially — and then to explain why the ratio is hard to move, naming land, labour, logistics and input tariffs. An answer that only celebrates or only dismisses is weaker than one that does both and explains the gap between them.
Preparing for CDS or OTA? Assessment questions reward candidates who can hold two true statements at once — what changed and what did not. Build the base with our CDS/OTA economy notes, follow the daily CDS/OTA current affairs, and prepare with our faculty in the upcoming Cavalier courses in Delhi.
✍️ Written by Aditya Tiwari — Economy & polity faculty at The Cavalier. Reviewed by the Cavalier Faculty Desk.