India’s industrial policy in 2025 has started to look less like a set of separate schemes and more like an operating system: incentives to build, rules to simplify, infrastructure to connect, platforms to transact, and institutions to unblock projects. The Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade’s year-end review offers a useful snapshot of how these pieces are being stitched together—manufacturing capacity and exports on one side, a deeper innovation and start-up pipeline on the other, and a steady push to make investment approvals faster and less punitive.
Manufacturing incentives that scale, sell and export
The headline instrument remains the Production Linked Incentive programme, spread across 14 sectors with an outlay of ₹1.97 lakh crore. Unlike older subsidy models that could reward presence, the structure ties support to incremental output and sales—an attempt to make competitiveness measurable.
By June 2025, the review notes actual investment of over ₹1.88 lakh crore, translating into incremental production/sales of over ₹17 lakh crore and employment generation of over 12.3 lakh (direct and indirect). Export performance is flagged as a key validation: exports exceeding ₹7.5 lakh crore, with notable contributions from electronics, pharmaceuticals, telecom and networking products, and food processing.
Table 1: PLI scorecard (as reported up to June 2025)
| Indicator | Reported value |
| Sectors covered | 14 |
| Outlay | ₹1.97 lakh crore |
| Investment realised | ₹1.88 lakh crore+ |
| Incremental production/sales | ₹17 lakh crore+ |
| Jobs generated (direct + indirect) | 12.3 lakh+ |
| Exports linked to PLI sectors | ₹7.5 lakh crore+ |
PLI outcomes (relative scale) | Investment realised | Incremental production/sales | Exports | Jobs generated |
The policy significance is not merely the size of these numbers; it is the direction of travel. A scheme that can demonstrate investment, output and exports in the same line of sight is harder to dismiss as fiscal decoration. It also aligns with an increasingly explicit national goal: plugging India more firmly into global value chains while keeping domestic value addition rising.
Start-ups move from “ecosystem” to employment engine
The second pillar is the start-up base that now looks like mass participation rather than a niche club. 2,01,335 start-upsare recognised by DPIIT, and they have created 21 lakh-plus jobs across the country. The review also captures an important social shift: more than 48% of recognised start-ups have at least one woman director, a statistic with longer-run implications for labour force participation, managerial depth, and household income resilience.
Table 2: Start-up India snapshot
| Indicator | Reported value |
| DPIIT-recognised start-ups | 2,01,335 |
| Jobs created | 21 lakh+ |
| Start-ups with at least one woman director | 48%+ |
Start-up scale | Recognised start-ups | Jobs created | Women-led presence |
The practical consequence is that start-ups are no longer only about venture capital headlines. They are becoming an employment channel in their own right—particularly in services, logistics, fintech, consumer brands, and deep-tech segments that feed into exportable capabilities.
Digital commerce: transactions at a national scale
If manufacturing is about “make”, and start-ups are about “build”, ONDC is about “trade”—and doing so in a way that is not restricted to a handful of platforms. The review reports 326 million-plus cumulative orders processed by October 2025. In October 2025 alone, 18.2 million orders were processed, with average daily transactions at around 5,90,000+.
Table 3: ONDC activity (as of October 2025)
| Metric | Value |
| Cumulative orders | 326 million+ |
| Orders in October 2025 | 18.2 million |
| Average daily transactions (October 2025) | 5,90,000+ |
The analytical point is not just volume; it is reach. A network approach can expand market access for small sellers and local service providers, while also creating a data trail that helps formalise commerce without forcing every participant into a single corporate gate.
Ease of doing business: fewer punishments, more processing speed
The review’s compliance reforms read like operational housekeeping, but this is where investor confidence is often made or lost. Across central ministries, departments and States/UTs, more than 47,000 compliances have been reduced (up to November 2025). The composition matters:
- 16,108 compliances simplified
- 22,287 digitised
- 4,458 decriminalised
- 4,270 redundant compliances removed
Table 4: Compliance burden reduction (till Nov 2025)
| Reform type | Count |
| Simplified | 16,108 |
| Digitised | 22,287 |
| Decriminalised | 4,458 |
| Removed (redundant) | 4,270 |
| Total reduced | 47,000+ |
Decriminalisation is the most economically meaningful part of the mix. It changes the tone of regulation from “default suspicion” to “default compliance”, reducing the fear premium that can distort risk-taking, particularly among MSMEs.
The National Single Window System is the parallel track: process redesign and approvals. Cumulatively (till 20 November 2025), 11,75,435 approvals were applied for and 8,29,750 approvals were granted. In November 2025 (till 20 November), 11,568 approvals were granted out of 26,504 applications received in that period.
Table 5: NSWS throughput (till 20 Nov 2025)
| Metric | Value |
| Approvals applied | 11,75,435 |
| Approvals granted | 8,29,750 |
| Nov (till 20th): applications received | 26,504 |
| Nov (till 20th): approvals granted | 11,568 |
Logistics and infrastructure planning: from maps to execution
India’s competitiveness has always been taxed by logistics costs and fragmented planning. The PM GatiShakti National Master Plan, launched in 2021, is now broad enough to be described as a national planning backbone: 57 ministries/departments onboarded, with 1,700 data layers uploaded (including 731 central ministry layers and 969State layers). Crucially, the platform has now been opened to the private sector via a query-based analytics mechanism using the National Geospatial Data Registry and a unified interface.
In parallel, the National Logistics Policy is being translated into sector plans—coal notified, cement approved, and several others in advanced stages—while 27 States/UTs have notified State logistics policies aligned to the national framework.
ULIP is the “pipes and plumbing” layer: 44 systems of 11 ministries connected through 136 APIs covering 2,000+ data fields. There are 1,700+ companies registered, building 200+ applications, with 200 crore-plus API transactions by industry players. More than 20 States’ public distribution systems are using ULIP APIs to streamline crop movement. The Logistics Data Bank adds visibility to container movement across 18 ports (31 terminals) and 5,800 railway stations through FOIS.
Table 6: Logistics digitisation and planning stack
| Platform/Initiative | Scale indicator |
| PM GatiShakti NMP | 57 ministries/depts; 1,700 layers |
| State logistics policies | 27 States/UTs notified |
| ULIP | 44 systems; 11 ministries; 136 APIs; 2,000+ fields |
| ULIP adoption | 1,700+ companies; 200+ apps; 200 crore+ API transactions |
| LDB coverage | 18 ports (31 terminals); 5,800 railway stations |
Industrial corridors, industrial performance, and the “unblocking” state
Under the National Industrial Corridor Development Programme, 20 projects across 13 states and 7 corridors have been approved. Foundation stones have been laid for Krishnapatnam (KRIS City) in Andhra Pradesh (8 January 2025), and for Kopparthy and Orvakal (16 October 2025). Plot allotments in completed greenfield nodes show market uptake: 430 plots covering 4,552 acres allotted across Dholera, Shendra Bidkin, Greater Noida and Vikram Udyogpuri.
Industrial data provides a steady, not overheated, backdrop: IIP expanded by 3.0% during April–September 2025–26, and the Index of Eight Core Industries grew by 2.5% during April–October 2025–26.
Project Monitoring Group work complements this by reducing time-loss in large investments. The PMG portal has onboarded 3,022 projects worth ₹76.4 lakh crore (till 11 November 2025). Since inception, 8,121 issues across 1,761 projects worth ₹55.48 lakh crore have been resolved; in 2025 alone (1 January to 11 November), 403 issues across 250 projects worth ₹11.04 lakh crore were resolved.
Table 7: PMG delivery metrics
| Metric | Value |
| Projects onboarded | 3,022 |
| Value onboarded | ₹76.4 lakh crore |
| Issues resolved since inception | 8,121 |
| Projects with issues resolved | 1,761 |
| Value with issues resolved | ₹55.48 lakh crore |
| Issues resolved in 2025 (till 11 Nov) | 403 |
| Projects covered in 2025 resolution | 250 |
| Value covered in 2025 resolution | ₹11.04 lakh crore |
Innovation and FDI: confidence expressed in filings and flows
India’s innovation indicators show sustained improvement rather than one-off spikes. Domestic patent filings by Indian innovators rose 425% over 2014–2024 (from 12,040 to 63,217), alongside sixth consecutive year of double-digit growth. India’s Global Innovation Index rank improved to 38th in 2025, from 81st in 2015, and the report recognises India as a long-standing over-performer for the 15th consecutive year.
On foreign investment, the review notes gross FDI inflow of USD 1.1 trillion since April 2000 to June 2025. Annual inflows have more than doubled from USD 36.05 billion in FY 2013–14 to USD 80.62 billion in FY 2024–25. For 2025–26 (up to June 2025), provisional inflows are USD 26.61 billion, up 17% from last year.
Taken together, the year-end picture is of a system pushing on multiple constraints at once: scaling production through incentives, widening entrepreneurship, digitising commerce, making regulation less adversarial, integrating logistics, building industrial cities, resolving project bottlenecks, and deepening innovation capacity. It is a distinctly pro-growth design choice: reduce friction, reward performance, and let scale do the rest.
(Data source: PIB, other GOI platforms)
