Mandaviya Marks 12 Years of Make in India
Synopsis
Key Takeaways
Twelve years after Prime Minister Narendra Modi unfurled a lion-emblazoned banner and told the world India was open for business, Union Labour and Sports Minister Mansukh Mandaviya marked the anniversary with a pointed couplet: India's new identity is echoing across the world, and Make in India has given the Atmanirbhar dream its wings.
Posting on Friday, 25 September 2026 with the tag #12YearsOfMakeInIndia, Mandaviya wrote in Hindi: 'Vishwa mein goonj rahi Bharat ki nayi pehchaan, Modi ji ke Make in India ne bhari Atmanirbhar udaan' — 'India's new identity is resonating across the world; Modi's Make in India has fuelled the Atmanirbhar flight.' The verse is compact, but the policy story behind it spans a decade-plus of industrial ambition.
From a 2014 Launch Pad to a Global Manufacturing Conversation
Make in India was unveiled by Prime Minister Modi on 25 September 2014 with a single overarching goal: transform India from a largely import-dependent economy into a globally competitive manufacturing hub. The initiative targeted 25 sectors — from defence and electronics to automobiles and pharmaceuticals — and was designed to attract both domestic investment and foreign direct investment by easing regulations and building infrastructure.
Over the following years, the programme became the scaffolding for allied policy pushes: the Production-Linked Incentive (PLI) schemes rolled out across sectors, the push for semiconductor fabrication, and the broader Atmanirbhar Bharat (Self-Reliant India) framework announced in 2020. Mandaviya's couplet explicitly fuses the two — Make in India as the runway, Atmanirbhar Bharat as the flight.
Why the 12th Anniversary Message Lands the Way It Does
Anniversary messaging from senior ministers is rarely accidental. By framing Make in India as the source of India's 'new global identity,' the government is signalling continuity and confidence — that the manufacturing pivot begun in 2014 has matured into something the world now recognises. The manufacturing sector and investor community, the two primary stakeholders the initiative was always designed to court, remain the intended audience.
What to watch next: updated FDI inflow figures, fresh manufacturing-sector output data, and any announcements around expanded PLI scheme coverage that may accompany the anniversary — each of which would put hard numbers behind the poetic framing Mandaviya chose today.
A couplet is a promise compressed to two lines. Whether the data delivers the crescendo is the question the next quarterly numbers will answer.