PLI's Uneven Record Exposes the Component Gap Beneath Assembly

The Production-Linked Incentive schemes have a split record. Mobile manufacturing has realised roughly 312% of its targeted investment and textiles 117% — clear outperformers. But Electronic Components sits at 68% utilisation, Bulk Drugs at 48%, and White Goods at 67%. The pattern is not random.

Assembly localises, dependency migrates

The schemes that outperformed reward finished-product assembly, where India already had a base to scale. The laggards are the upstream component and active-ingredient lines — exactly the layers that finished-goods incentives do not reach. So localising the phone or the formulation shifts the import bill from the product to its components and precursors, rather than eliminating it. The dependency moves one tier down the stack.

The ecosystem gap

This is the structural gap the dependency lens exposes: PLI targets products; the L0-L3 ecosystem layers beneath them are not incentivised. Until the component, material and equipment tiers are pulled in — with instruments matched to their longer paybacks and thinner early economics — assembly success will keep masking upstream dependence.

What the signal means

The next generation of incentive design has to fund the chain, not just the output: component-line capex, materials, test-and-certification and equipment, where the imports actually concentrate. The PLI utilisation numbers are an early map of where that redesign is most overdue — components and bulk drugs first.