India self-reliant in textiles, food products, iron & steel

India has achieved self-reliance or 'aatmanirbharta' in textiles and clothing, food products, iron and steel and transport, but continues to lag in the machinery, electronics and plastics sectors, according to a report prepared by Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) and PriceWaterhouseCoopers (PwC).

In a move to measure India's self-reliance, industry body CII and accountancy firm PwC have developed an 'AatmaNirbhar Index', which is expressed as the ratio of the country's total exports and its imports.

In FY22, the index had a reading of 0.69. The index classifies India into 20 sectors, including textiles, aluminium, electronics, food products and transport.

An index value greater than one for a sector means India is 'aatmanirbhar' in that sector, while a value less than one means India is not self-reliant in that sector.

"India registered an overall aatmanirbharta with the index value at 0.69 in 2021-22 with an export value of $422 billion and an import value of $613 billion," CII and PwC said in a report titled 'Measuring India's AatmnaNirbharta'.

As per the report, in FY22 eight of the 20 sectors had an index reading of greater than or equal to 1. These sectors are animal products, hides products, footwear and aluminium.

"Exports for these sectors were higher than imports, not only in 2021-22 but also in 2016-17," the two entities said, adding that trade surplus has increased for six of these eight sectors in the last five years.

The report showed that 12 sectors had an AI of less than 1 and eight registered a greater net trade surplus in the last five years.

"Hence, even if these sectors have an AI value less than 1, many of these sectors are exhibiting steady progress towards aatmanirbharta," CII and PwC said.

Among the sectors with AI less than 1, a contraction has been seen in the import share of electronics, diamonds, machineries, minerals, wood products and vegetable products.

EXTERNAL FACTORS
Highlighting that India's overall AI value was 0.72 in 2016-17, the report said that higher value of imports relative to exports over this period marginally impacted the overall score in 2021-22.