- NITI Aayog's roadmap identifies chemicals, textiles, solar PV, and telecom as key sectors for India
- The report evaluates 12 sectors for India's potential global manufacturing leadership
- Focus areas include enhancing domestic capabilities, export competitiveness, and reducing imports
NITI Aayog's first volume of its manufacturing roadmap has identified chemicals, textiles, solar photovoltaic manufacturing, and telecom and networking products as key sectors for India's global manufacturing ambitions.
The report, titled “Key Sectors to Position India as a Global Manufacturing Hub,” is part of a broader exercise that assessed an initial universe of 62 manufacturing sectors and identified 12 in which India can realistically aspire to global leadership.
The 12 sectors include electronics, telecom equipment, solar PV, pharmaceuticals, chemicals, automobiles, defence and drones, steel, capital goods, textiles, food processing, and leather and footwear.
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The report focuses on strengthening domestic capabilities, moving up the value chain, improving export competitiveness, reducing import dependence and integrating Indian manufacturers more deeply into global production networks.
The sectors were assessed based on market size and growth projections, strategic alignment, operational and financial viability, raw-material dependencies, geopolitical considerations and India's position in global value chains. The analysis also benchmarked each sector against leading manufacturing nations and incorporated inputs from industry consultations.
Chemicals
NITI Aayog sees scope for India's chemicals industry to move beyond basic production by expanding downstream manufacturing and improving feedstock utilisation. Greater domestic manufacturing, competitiveness-focused investments and better use of free trade agreements could help strengthen India's position in global chemical value chains.
Textiles
Textiles and apparel contribute around 2% of India's GDP, 11% of manufacturing GVA and 9% of merchandise exports, while providing livelihoods to more than 45 million people.
India exported $37.7 billion in textile products in FY25 and accounted for 4.1% of global textile and apparel exports, making it the sixth-largest exporter globally.
The report recommends improving raw-material availability, infrastructure, technology adoption and skills, while highlighting technical textiles, man-made fibres, sustainable products and premium Indian weaves as areas where India can achieve greater value addition.
Telecom
The report notes that India has more than 1.2 billion telecom subscribers and is the world's second-largest telecom market. NITI Aayog recommends deeper localisation, stronger component manufacturing, technology partnerships, industrial clusters and improved testing and certification capabilities.
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Solar
India had 106 GW of solar capacity as of March 2025 and would need another 174 GW to reach its 280 GW 2030 target. The domestic PV market is projected to grow 17-20% annually between FY23 and FY30.
The report recommends strengthening upstream manufacturing, research and development, technology partnerships and clean-tech clusters to build a more competitive domestic solar PV manufacturing ecosystem.
The study will be released in three volumes. The first volume covers chemicals, textiles, solar PV manufacturing, and telecom and networking products, while the remaining eight sectors identified in the broader 12-sector exercise will be covered in subsequent volumes.
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