About Rs 1,515 crore was disbursed in FY24 till October, while it was Rs 2,900 crore in 2022-23, when payments under the scheme commenced. The government in 2021 announced PLI schemes for 14 sectors with an outlay of Rs 1.97 lakh crore.

“Incentive amount of around Rs 4,415 crore disbursed under PLI Schemes for eight sectors including large-scale electronics manufacturing, IT hardware, bulk drugs, medical devices, pharma, telecom, food processing, and drones,” Additional Secretary in the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT) Rajeev Singh Thakur said in a press conference.

On a question regarding low job creation commensurate with investments, Thakur said that several tech driven productions have low job creation. The government said that employment generation, both direct and indirect, is over 6.78 lakh. Former Reserve Bank of India (RBI) governor Raghuram Rajan had raised questions over lack of job creation under the scheme.

“The nature of these product lines is such that it is highly technology driven and the requirement of man power is limited. It will be challenging in the future when industry 4.0 comes in. It is a cause of concern but we will see job creation going forward,” Thakur said.