The Narendra Modi led union government is preparing to roll out a Rs 1.68 lakh crores (US $23 billion) to lure major global manufacturing companies to India.

This package would likely be along the lines of production lined incentives (PLI) that was earlier offered to mobile phone makers.

The current proposed package will be offered to automobile, solar panel, special steel, textile units and other specialised manufacturing units, Bloomberg has reported.

Over 22 companies including leading South Korean mobile device maker Samsung and Taiwanese electronic manufacturing firms Pegatron, Foxconn and Wistron - have submitted applications to the Ministry of Electronics and Information technology (MEITY) to participate in the production-linked incentive (PLI) scheme offered to global players.

In July 2020, the Modi government in a policy moved aimed at promoting domestic manufacturing of active pharmaceutical ingredients (API) and reduce dependence on imports, notified a Rs 6,940-crore production linked incentive scheme to boost domestic drug manufacturing.

Apart from production linked incentives the union government also rolled out packages such as Scheme for promotion of manufacturing of electronic components and semiconductors (SPECS) and Modified electronics manufacturing clusters (EMC 2.0) to push electronics manufacturing in the country.

Bloomberg also reported that similar production linked incentive schemes may be extended for items such as furniture, toys and low value consumer durables that currently being sourced from Chinese firms.