Localisation lens on 500 most-imported items: DPIIT analysing data; move aims to reduce country’s import bill

New Delhi: The government is examining 500-odd heavily imported products including machinery, fertilisers, chemicals, cotton staple fibre, plastics, silicon wafers and carbon fibres, to identify localisation opportunities and reduce dependence on overseas supply.

The commerce and industry ministry is collating data from different ministries on import dependence, estimated time and capital investment required to achieve commercially viable domestic manufacturing capability, and national strategic relevance of these products, officials privy to the development said.

The idea is to reduce the country's import bill and build supply resilience amid the ongoing West Asia crisis.


The Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT) is "analysing data such as production capacity and bottlenecks faced by industry," one of the officials said.

The department has sought information such as the extent to which domestic demand for the product is met through imports, indicating vulnerability to external supply and the need for localisation, and the importance of the product in ensuring continuity, resilience, and stability of domestic manufacturing and essential downstream sectors.

The exercise also covers harvester-threshers, parts of turbo jets and certain graphite, officials said.

DPIIT is likely to shortlist around 100 items where the imports are high but the country has capacity to produce them locally, another person aware of the development said.

High import dependence means where 60% or more of the domestic demand for the product is met through imports while medium is where imports are 30-60%.

"Electronics and chemicals are two key sectors where imports are huge but the potential to export is also significant," another official said.

India's goods import bill stood at $774.98 billion in FY26, led by oil at $174 billion, electronics at $116.17 billion, and gold at $72 billion. The country also imported organic and inorganic chemicals worth $28 billion last fiscal.

Makeup preparations, dishwashers, industrial valves and certain silicon wafers also figure in the list of the products whose imports are being studied.

The exercise comes after Prime Minister Narendra Modi urged citizens to help preserve foreign exchange and contain the country's rising import bill amid the ongoing conflict in West Asia.