Furniture Sector Can Also Grow With the PLI Scheme

FDT Bureau

Designed to encourage investment and reduce import dependency in the country, the Production-Linked Incentive (PLI) Scheme in India is now being expanded to new sectors. There is a great possibility that it can be implemented for the furniture sector as well. It is worth noting that apart from the initial 14 sectors, when this scheme was implemented in the IT sector, a lot of investment came in, especially for semiconductor and solar component manufacturing.

Now its exports are also being done at a rapid pace, and the import dependency has reduced in this sector. There is talk of bringing the PLI scheme to the furniture sector as well. The industry experts believe that similar enthusiastic results will be seen when it is implemented in the furniture sector as well. If we look at the financial year 2022-2023, there has been a decline in the import of electronic products from China to India, which has come down from $ 30.3 billion in FY 2022 to $ 27.6 billion in FY 2023.

This decline was mainly due to the production-linked incentive (PLI) scheme. Similarly, imports of solar cells, parts, and related components saw a sharp decline of 70.9 percent. Also, there was a decline of 23.1 percent in the import of laptops and personal computers and 4.1 percent in the import of mobile phones. This decline in imports highlights the effectiveness of the PLI scheme, which aims to boost domestic manufacturing and reduce dependence on imports.      

The scheme provides incentives to manufacturers, encouraging them to set up and expand production facilities in India. Speaking at the recent G7 meeting in Tokyo, Finance Minister Ms Nirmala Sitharaman said that encouraging and facilitating investment in India through production-linked incentive (PLI) schemes is a priority for the government.

The government initially provided an incentive of Rs 1.97 lakh crore under various PLI schemes for five years to boost domestic manufacturing. Last month, the second phase of the scheme was implemented to further promote semiconductor and solar components. And in the new scheme, approval has been given to increase IT hardware PLI SOPS by more than doubling to Rs 17,000 crore.