Manufacturing Has Been Destroyed By Demonetisation And GST, One sees Made in China, Vietnam and Bangladesh, but not “Made in India”

“Manufacturing Has Been Destroyed By Demonetisation And GST, One sees Made in China, Vietnam and Bangladesh, but not “Made in India””Rahul Gandhi, Chhatron Ki Goonj rally, Prayagraj, 8 August 2026

Rated False

The facts

1. To claim that manufacturing has been destroyed is not just misleading - its is completely detached from ground reality. Mobile-phone production rose from ₹18,900 crore to ₹6.27 lakh crore, exports from ₹1,566 crore to ₹2.60 lakh crore, while PLI schemes for Large Scale Electronics Manufacturing have attracted over ₹96,000 crore of investment. Electronics production rose from roughly ₹1.9 lakh crore in 2014-15 to ₹13.11 lakh crore in 2025-26, a 7X increase, while electronics exports rose 11X to ₹4.24 lakh crore.90
2. The question is simple: How can manufacturing be called “destroyed” when production, investment and exports have all multiplied?
3. The global supply chains are moving to India. Anchored by the Production Linked Incentive (PLI) scheme, global giants like Apple, Foxconn, Tata Electronics, and Samsung are actively shifting supply chains from China to India. This mobile ecosystem currently supports 12 lakh direct and indirect jobs, with MeitY schemes alone creating over 5.3 lakh targeted jobs.
4. GST replaced a fragmented, hard-to-navigate tax structure with a unified 'One Nation, One Tax' system, broadening the tax base and integrating MSMEs into national supply chains.92
5. Demonetisation, meanwhile, accelerated India’s transition towards digital payments and helped create the ecosystem around UPI today one of the world’s leading digital payment networks , giving even micro and small enterprises greater access to seamless digital transactions and financial services.
6. Core digital infrastructure like data centre capacity expanded fourfold (375 MW to 1,500 MW). Far from replacing "Made in India" with foreign goods, PLI and key structural reforms have permanently turned India from an import-dependent consumer into a global manufacturing export hub.93
7. Across PLI schemes, the numbers tell the story: it has attracted over ₹2.40 lakh crore in investment, generated 14.15 lakh+ jobs, and drove ₹15.2 lakh crore+ in exports.94

Sources

• 90pib.gov.in
• 92forbes.com
• 93pib.gov.in
• 94pib.gov.in

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