India shortlists 100 critical factory inputs from $51 billion basket

India has shortlisted 100 items it calls critical inputs for its factories and is weighing steps to make them at home, a senior government official said on 27 October. The items came from a wider basket of goods worth up to $51 billion in imports, The Economic Times reported, crediting Reuters¹.

The official was not named. The report did not identify any of the 100 items, saying only that they span footwear, textiles, electric vehicles and solar panels¹.

What is settled, and what is not

The list itself is not public. In September 2025, Commerce Secretary Sunil Barthwal said the ministry planned to make a list of 100 imported products public, so that existing and would-be manufacturers could see the opportunities, ET reported¹. Tuesday's report does not say whether this shortlist is that same list. It also does not say which measures the government is considering¹.

The numbers are more definite than the policy. India imported $775 billion of goods in the 12 months to March 2026¹. An internal government analysis found that $398 billion of that could be made locally, one source told Reuters¹. The $398 billion comes from that single unnamed source, so treat it as an estimate, not a target¹.

Why the push is gathering pace

Two Chinese moves this month could affect the equipment and technology Indian manufacturers buy. Beijing will require licences from 18 November for exports of tunnel boring machines, walking excavators and plateau-type wet shotcrete machines². It has also proposed export controls on 12 photovoltaic manufacturing technologies, which India Ratings and Research says could delay India's solar cell plans³.

The dependence built up over years. China's share of India's industrial goods imports rose to 30% from 21% over 15 years, the Global Trade Research Initiative found, with electronics, telecom and machinery most exposed¹. In 2025-26, India's imports from China were $131.62 billion and the deficit widened to $99.19 billion, commerce ministry data reported by BusinessLine show⁴.

On the same day, Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal said India welcomes Chinese suppliers of intermediate goods. He said India would "welcome suppliers to meet the growing needs of India", and that pricing complaints go through an established judicial process⁴. Localisation and Chinese sourcing are running in parallel, not one after the other.

Which levers could change what you pay

Nothing in the report says duties on these 100 items are coming¹. India has used five levers in recent years, each reaching a purchase order differently.

Cash incentives. Production-linked incentive schemes cover 14 sectors, with an approved outlay of about ₹1.97 lakh crore. Only ₹23,946 crore had been disbursed by September 2025, according to CareEdge figures⁵. A $1.2 billion scheme for construction and infrastructure equipment is nearing approval, seeking $1.8 billion of investment over seven years with local value addition targets². Incentives change who can supply, but only after capacity is built. They rarely change this quarter's price.

Local content rules. The ALMM-II framework requires solar developers to buy cells from approved domestic makers, so the restricted input is the imported cell⁶. Such rules decide which supplier can be used at all.

Duties on the imported version. On 24 October, India reimposed anti-dumping duty of $460 to $681 per tonne on specified Chinese titanium dioxide for five years⁷. The order covers customs lines 2823 00 10, 3206 11 10 and 3206 11 90, with exclusions for food, pharmaceutical, cosmetic and textile grades⁷. This is the fastest lever to hit a landed cost.

The opposite lever, duty relief. The textiles ministry has asked the revenue department to drop customs duty on caprolactam, nylon chips, rayon-grade wood pulp and cotton⁸. It has also recommended removing or deferring anti-dumping duties on elastomeric filament yarn and viscose rayon filament yarn, and industry wants a six-month waiver on MEG, PTA, POY, FDY and DTY⁸. For an upstream textile input, the next change may cut your cost.

Quality control orders. These make BIS certification compulsory for domestic and foreign suppliers alike. Aluminium beverage cans came under one. The deadline was later pushed to April 2027 for large firms, July 2027 for small firms and October 2027 for micro units, after domestic capacity fell short⁹. Imported cans cost 25% to 30% more than domestic ones during that shortage, and some certifications require inspection of overseas plants⁹.

What to check, and what to watch

Check your own bill of materials for:

• inputs in the four sectors cited for the shortlist so far: footwear and textiles, electric vehicles and solar panels¹.
• exposure to the categories where the Global Trade Research Initiative says Chinese reliance is highest: electronic parts, EV batteries, solar modules, active pharmaceutical ingredients and specialty chemicals. That is a separate list and does not mean these items are on the shortlist¹.
• inputs that already need BIS certification, since that process can add audits and months⁹.
• inputs that pay duty while the domestic substitute does not, the duty imbalance the textiles ministry has taken up with the revenue department⁸.
• a qualified domestic or non-Chinese alternative for each line, and what it quotes against your current landed cost^2, 9.

Then watch three things. First, whether the commerce ministry publishes the 100 items, as Barthwal said it would in September 2025¹. Second, which items get a quality control order or incentive support first, because those move supplier qualification and price in opposite directions^5, 9. Third, the $1.2 billion capital goods scheme, the nearest recent example of how a sector gets support once it is named².

Until the list is out, the working assumption is no change to duties. The risk is timing: a duty bites from the date it is notified, while new domestic capacity can take up to a year to come online^7, 9.