Centre to tweak some PLI schemes, expects disbursements to rise to Rs 13,000 cr in FY24

The Centre is tweaking some of the production linked incentive (PLI) schemes that have not witnessed adequate interest. However, the government remains confident about the overall response to the incentives and believes that it will result in much larger investments this fiscal. 

“From the current year onwards, the (disbursement) numbers will be much larger. It will go up to at least Rs 13,000 crore. When it will get exhausted is difficult to say. We expect a good part to be exhausted. The savings that we anticipated are already being considered for other PLI schemes or for other restructured PLI schemes,” said Rajesh Kumar Singh, Secretary, Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT). 

PLI schemes for sectors including medical devices, pharmaceuticals, food processing, telecom, drones and white goods are doing well, he told reporters on Friday. 

“Some course correction and tweaking in some of the PLIs is being undertaken where there has been under subscription. Those exercises are on,” he said, while declining to elaborate on specific sectors where the schemes are not doing as expected.   

The government had made an initial allocation of Rs 1.97 lakh crore for PLIs in 14 sectors. In these, 733 applications have been approved and the actual investment already achieved is Rs 78,000 crore.  

“Sales of over Rs 6 lakh crore have been generated through these schemes, employment of around 4 lakh. Exports have been a big success, particularly due to the mobile sector,” said Singh, adding that exports have been boosted by Rs 2.65 lakh crore till FY23.  

About Rs 2,900 crore has been disbursed. Singh said the government has not been worried about disbursements for now as it is focused on investments coming in first and start of production. 

Meanwhile, the DPIIT is also planning to notify about 60 quality control orders this year, of which four are likely to be notified over the next few days. “Within a few days, we will be bringing out four additional key issues that are cookware and utensils, fire extinguishers, domestic gas stove with PNG and electric ceiling type fans,” explained another official.  

Recently, seven QCOs had been passed relating to smart meters, welding rods and electrodes, bolt, nut and fasteners, resin treated compressed wood laminates, potable water bottles, insulated flasks and containers and flame producing lighters. 

In all, the 60 QCOs under process pertain to sectors relating to light engineering, consumer industries, paper, aluminium and rubber.  

“India has been one of the lowest users of QCOs in the world. The recourse to QCOs is expected to help in the quality of items,” the DPIIT Secretary said. 

He further noted that tariff policy, QCOs and PLI will help widen the manufacturing base and ensure production of quality products.