NITI Aayog emphasizes sector-by-sector reforms to enhance India’s export-driven manufacturing, focusing on MSME development, technological upgrades, and global market integration across key industries such as textiles, chemicals, telecom, and solar PV.
NITI Aayog has stepped up its push for a more export-oriented manufacturing base, saying India needs a sector-by-sector strategy that helps small firms move deeper into global supply chains rather than remain confined to low-value assembly work. In a new report, the think tank sets out a roadmap for chemicals, textiles, telecom and networking equipment, and solar photovoltaic manufacturing, arguing that each sector faces different constraints on raw materials, technology, infrastructure and market access. According to the plan, the goal is to strengthen competitiveness while increasing local value addition and cutting import dependence.
The report places micro, small and medium-sized enterprises at the centre of that effort. It says MSMEs make up more than 95% of India’s manufacturing units, but many still rely on older equipment, limited credit and patchy digital adoption. NITI Aayog argues that without better access to finance, compliance support and supply-chain integration, smaller manufacturers will struggle to benefit from wider industrial expansion. The larger policy direction also fits with earlier NITI Aayog work that called for sunrise sectors and stronger industrial champions to lift India’s manufacturing footprint.
Textiles receive particular attention because of their role as a labour-intensive employer and an important export earner. The report says the sector contributes 2% of GDP, 11% of manufacturing gross value added and 9% of merchandise exports, while supporting more than 45 million livelihoods. It notes that India exported $37.7 billion of textiles in fiscal 2025, placing it sixth globally with a 4.1% share of world exports. But the industry still faces structural weaknesses, including dependence on cotton, expensive man-made fibre feedstock, fragmented production, weak productivity and tougher competition from Bangladesh and Vietnam. NITI Aayog says technology upgrades, better raw material availability and cluster-based certification support could help MSMEs modernise and meet global standards.
The same logic runs through the report’s treatment of chemicals, telecom equipment and solar PV. In chemicals, the focus is on downstream expansion, stronger feedstock availability and lower import dependence; in telecom and networking equipment, on component localisation, technology development and commercial support for smaller innovators; and in solar PV, on upstream capability, research and integrated clean-tech ecosystems. Other recent NITI Aayog material has pointed to even broader ambitions for advanced manufacturing, including wider use of artificial intelligence, robotics and digital twins, underlining the government’s view that India’s industrial push must be driven by technology as well as scale.
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