India Trade — Sector & Policy Recommendations · Five-Year Incentive Register

2021–2026: the migration away from production-linked design

Every incentive-scheme launch in the Cabinet-decision register over five and a half years — 93 launches classified by sector and instrument from the repo's 83,734-release PIB index by five parallel agents — shows the 2026 "de-risking pivot" is the end of a trend, not a blip. New production-linked schemes: 11 → 1 → 1 → 0 → 2 → 0. And even at the 2021 peak, production-linked outlay was only 11.2% of the year's newly committed money.

SOURCE: data/pib_index.sqlite Cabinet register 2021–2026 (178–257 rows/yr, deduplicated; routine sanctions/fixations excluded); outlays from PIB detail pages; every scheme PRID-cited in the data JSON. 2026 detail: the beyond-PLI bulletin. Retrieved 2026-07-19.
The trend
New production-linked scheme launches per year
2021
11
2022
1
2023
1
2024
0
2025
2
2026
0
2025's two (ECMS, rare-earth magnets) are hybrids: turnover-linked payouts blended with capex support. 2026's MPMS is a successor to a wound-down PLI, not a new lane.
Year by year
Six eras of incentive design
YearEraLaunchesNew ₹cr (classified)Prod-linked shareSignature moves
2021The PLI big bang — plus the quiet mission money25₹10.48 lakh cr11.2%11 PLI schemes + Semicon India ₹76,000cr — but RDSS (₹3.04L cr), AMRUT 2.0 (₹2.77L cr) and SBM-U 2.0 (₹1.42L cr) carried 6× the money with none of the narrative
2022Rescue & consolidation11₹3.17 lakh cr6.2%BSNL revival ₹1.64L cr, ECLGS +₹50,000cr, agri subvention ₹34,856cr; Biofuels amendment pulls E20 forward to 2025-26; lone new PLI: solar Tranche-II
2023Missions & viability-gap funding arrive10₹1.23 lakh cr13.8%Green Hydrogen Mission ₹19,744cr (SIGHT = PLI-like inside a mission), BESS VGF, PM-eBus Sewa, PM Vishwakarma, Quantum Mission; IT-hardware PLI 2.0 the lone PLI
2024The capex-subsidy year — zero new PLI17₹1.78 lakh cr0%Four ISM semiconductor units (₹1.29L cr investment), PM-Surya Ghar ₹75,021cr, offshore-wind VGF, PM E-DRIVE ₹10,900cr (demand-side FAME successor), NMEO-Oilseeds, 12 industrial cities, space VC fund, BioE3
2025Funds & mega-packages; payouts migrate to jobs13₹3.94 lakh cr7.7%RDI fund ₹1L cr, ELI ₹99,446cr — employment-linked, larger than any single PLI, shipbuilding package ₹69,725cr, Critical Mineral Mission ₹34,300cr, Export Promotion Mission ₹25,060cr + exporter credit guarantee ₹20,000cr
2026De-risking inputs (YTD)17~₹1.9 lakh cr0%Urban Challenge Fund ₹1L cr, gasification VGF ₹37,500cr, BHAVYA parks ₹33,660cr, BMI insurance pool, NIPU-2026, ECLGS 5.0 — the full detail in the beyond-PLI bulletin
Cross-cutting findings
What only the five-year view shows
Seven findings from reading the register as one series
  • Production-linked was never where the money was. The 11 PLI launches of 2021 (₹1.17L cr) were 11.2% of that year's ₹10.5L cr in new commitments — infra missions carried 6× the outlay. PLI dominated the count and the narrative, never the rupees.
  • The "linked" payout base migrated from output to jobs: production-linked (2021) → design-linked (semicon DLI) → employment-linked (ELI 2025, ₹99,446cr) → 2026's pure de-risking. The state still writes conditional cheques; the condition changed.
  • Escalation on a repo-flagged gap: coal gasification went ₹8,500cr (Jan 2024, PRID 1999219) → ₹37,500cr (May 2026, PRID 2260621) — a 4.4× escalation on the same import-substitution target in 28 months.
  • A critical-minerals chain assembled in one year (2025): mission ₹34,300cr + recycling ₹1,500cr + rare-earth magnets ₹7,280cr — the new import-substitution frontier, upstream of every PLI sector.
  • Maritime became a package sector without a PLI: flagging subsidy ₹1,624cr (2021) → shipbuilding package ₹69,725cr + BMI pool ₹12,980cr (2025-26) — matching the trade analysis' freight/insurance exposure.
  • Ethanol's whole instrument trail is in the register — Biofuels amendment advancing E20 (2022) → procurement mechanism (2025) — the abstract's Act-3 precedent, running on offtake + pricing, never production payouts.
  • 2024 is the pivot year in hindsight: zero new PLI, and the four largest moves were all capex approvals or capex subsidies — the design change predates the 2026 wave by two years.
Caveats: counts and outlays are gate-1 Cabinet commitments (this repo's lifecycle rules apply — nothing is "delivered" until gates 4–7); multi-year outlays are not annualized; mission totals mix central, state and market shares, so yearly sums are indicative rather than additive fiscal cost. Continuations/tranches of existing schemes are excluded by design — this measures new instrument creation, not total incentive spend.