Return of rent-seeking

PLI schemes have already set off the expected lobbying

The government’s initial push under “Make in India” to attract manufacturing has not succeeded as hoped. Perhaps that is one reason, alongside a more general scepticism about trade that has caused the rash of recent 1970s-style industrial policy announcements, from “champion sectors” to “production-linked incentives” (PLI). Economists have warned that these inducements to investment have been tried in India before but come with a dangerous tendency to become self-sustaining, causing a permanent drain on the treasury without really improving competitiveness. The first signs of such a development are, sadly, already visible. A body representing mobile handset makers has said its