Production Linked Incentive scheme: Overview and benefits

The Production-Linked Incentive (PLI) scheme, aimed to boost domestic manufacturing under the government’s Atmanirbar Bharat initiative, was introduced in March 2020. In Budget 2021-22, 13 sectors were identified for an outlay of INR 1.97 lakh crore. Till early April, the scheme has been approved for nine sectors including electronic or technology products, pharmaceuticals drugs, telecom and networking products, food products, high-efficiency solar PV modules, etc.

To discuss more on the scheme and its impact, Grant Thornton Bharat organised a webinar on Production Linked Incentive scheme: Overview and benefits.

Key takeaways:

• Overall budget of 1.97 lakh crore has been sanctioned by the government for the incentives under PLI scheme with an aim to create national champions for manufacturing, generate employment opportunities and encourage make in India and AtmaNirbhar Bharat initiatives.
• Categories of applicants, eligibility criteria, incentive structure, base year and minimum investment for each of the sectors covered under scheme i.e. Food Processing, Pharma, Whitegoods, Automotive, ACC battery storage, Telecom and IT hardware.
• Every scheme released by the government needs to be read in detail, if the applicant does not follow the guidelines then application may not go through or there would be deficiencies in the application.
• For all the schemes, there is a Project management agency (PMA) appointment, it is an independent agency who will be screening the applications on behalf of the government, implementing the scheme and recommending the applicants.