NITI Aayog Releases Impact Assessment Report on PLI Schemes

The NITI Aayog on 12 November 2026 brought out a study titled 'Impact Assessment of PLI Schemes', which weighs what the Production Linked Incentive route has delivered for Indian factories. The Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad was the knowledge partner for the exercise.

What the study covers

The assessment runs across all 14 sectors notified under the PLI umbrella and tests each of them on four yardsticks: investment drawn in, additional production, exports and jobs created. Firm-level figures supplied by the ministries that run each scheme were read together with industry data drawn from authenticated sources.

Every sector has been placed in one of four baskets - On-Track, Partial Impact, Insignificant Evidence of Impact, and Data unavailable - so that progress can be compared one sector against another. Taken together, close to 70 per cent of the targeted segments are reported to be on track, and the study notes that investment and output have moved past the levels first set.

Sectors that did well

• Pharmaceuticals, mobile phone making under Large Scale Electronics Manufacturing, food processing, telecom, white goods and automobiles recorded visible gains in investment, output and capacity.
• Drones came through as the earliest implementation success story under the scheme.
• Capacity in high efficiency solar photovoltaic modules widened sharply, deepening the country's renewable energy manufacturing base.

Sectors still building up

Segments resting on advanced and emerging technology, such as Advanced Chemistry Cell batteries, speciality steel and technical textiles, are adding capacity gradually, and the study expects their contribution to show over a longer horizon of industrial growth.

What the report asks for

It presses for wider participation by MSMEs, harmonised data systems and steady ecosystem support. Lasting gains, the study holds, rest on deeper domestic value addition and stronger supply chains. The incentive route, begun to lift manufacturing competitiveness and to place Indian firms inside global value chains, is treated as a self-sustaining design that rewards only high-performing firms, and is tied to the goal of Viksit Bharat 2047. The report is meant as a reference for policymakers, implementing ministries, industry and researchers.