Budget 2023: Govt may announce PLI scheme for more highly employable sectors; check details here

PLI scheme budget expectations: In the upcoming Budget 2023-24, the government may extend the production-linked incentive (PLI) scheme to more sectors having high employment potential. These include the production of toys, bicycles, and footwear. A proposal to extend benefits of the PLI scheme sectors like toys and leather is in advanced stages and is likely to figure in the Budget, news agency PTI reported. 

Experts believe that while the PLI schemes have witnessed a rise in investments, the disbursement of funds under these schemes should happen in a timely fashion and that it needs to be expanded to other sectors to ascertain its effects. 

Tax Partner at EY India, Saurabh Agarwal said that while some PLI schemes have witnessed a rise in investments, disbursement of funds should be done in a time-bound manner and value addition details being sought should be limited to self-declaration or certifications up to tier-1 component manufacturers. 

Agarwal said: "While some of the PLI schemes such as mobile phones, white goods, food, telecom, auto, and auto-components, etc. have seen an upswing in investments, making the government realise its objective of self-reliant Bharat in mid to long run, the data for investments made in other PLI schemes is not readily available for the industry to get a clear insight on the creation of value chain in many other sectors where the PLI schemes have been rolled out." 

Samiran Chakraborty, Chief Economist- India- at Citibank had said at the Business Today Markets Summit that PLI needs to be expanded to various sectors to ascertain its impact. Chakraborty said: “We have to think of PLI as an experiment which brings in more investment into non-PLI sectors or we’ll have to expand PLI to many sectors for us to see its impact.” According to him, foreign companies are considering doing business in India but are fighting a perception battle that it’s difficult to do business in the country. 

The government launched a production-linked incentive (PLI) scheme across sectors to make Indian manufacturing globally competitive, attract investments, enhance exports, integrate India into the global supply chain, and reduce dependency on imports under its Aatmanirbhar Bharat initiative. The scheme has been rolled out across 14 sectors including automobiles, auto components, pharma, food products, high-efficiency solar PV modules, advanced chemistry cell, specialty steel, white goods, and textiles at an outlay of around Rs 2 lakh crore. 

Meanwhile, the Union Budget 2023 will be tabled in the Parliament on February 1 and will be the last full budget of the Modi government 2.0 with the next Lok Sabha elections due in April-May 2024. 

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