Import Substitution : a 10 Year long Journey

 

 

 

 

 

 

mport Substitution: From a 2015 Blueprint to a 2025 Imperative

The Commerce Department is preparing a list of 100 critical imports (chemicals, pharma inputs, engineering goods, etc.) to boost local production. This is undoubtedly a step in the right direction.

But here’s the truth: India had this opportunity a decade ago.

Back in September 2015, I had written a blog proposing a detailed strategy to transform India’s import dependence into a nationwide job-creation movement. I called for 5,000 imports to be systematically replaced by domestic production through a structured Detailed Project Report (DPR) mechanism.

This was not just theory. It was a practical, implementable blueprint — one that would have already reduced our dependence on critical imports today, had it been adopted.

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Tabulated Comparison

Aspect	Govt’s Current Step (2025)	My Original Proposal (2015)
Objective	Identify 100 key imports for local substitution.	Replace 5,000 imports through a Make in India web portal.
Approach	Ministry-driven identification & consultations.	Crowd-sourced: 1,000 manufacturers pick items & prepare DPRs.
Execution	Govt to seek new producers, explore capacity.	MSMEs + Engineering graduates prepare DPRs, backed by banks, mentored by retired experts.
Youth Involvement	Indirect (consultations with firms).	Direct: Each manufacturer trains 100+ fresh engineers yearly under Graduate Engineer Training (GET).
Incentives	Yet to be announced (PLI/subsidies expected).	Bold package: 200% tax deduction on GET training, 10-year tax holiday for startups, CSR classification for DPR costs.
Transparency	Only a list of 100 items to be shared.	Public display of DPR selections to avoid duplication & ensure accountability.
Scale	Limited to 100 imports for now.	Designed for 5,000+ products, starting with top 100, scaling nationwide.
Outcome	Import reduction and sectoral resilience.	Import substitution + MSME growth + job creation + entrepreneurship revolution.

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Why the 2015 Proposal Still Matters

• It was ahead of its time: In 2015, I argued that import substitution must be linked with youth employment, MSMEs, and tax incentives.
• It scales better: The Govt’s current 100-product list is a pilot. My proposal was designed for thousands of items, with built-in mechanisms for scale.
• It’s job-centric: The 2015 plan integrates fresh engineers and MSMEs, converting job-seekers into job-creators.

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A Timely Revival in 2025

In my August 2025 blog — Retaliate Without Escalating: India’s Smart Response to Tariff Threats — I revived this very idea, framing it as a non-escalatory response to global tariff pressures.

Now that the government is finally moving towards import substitution, it must not stop at identification. It must adopt the 2015 DPR-based framework, which is:

• Transparent
• Scalable
• Job-creating
• Non-provocative under WTO norms

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Call to Action

The Government has taken the first step — identifying 100 critical imports.
But the next step is crucial: adopt the 2015 DPR mechanism to transform this from a bureaucratic list into a mass movement of factories, MSMEs, and young engineers.

This is how India will retaliate smartly, without escalating trade wars — and truly become the human resource and manufacturing hub of the world.

 

Thought-Fields, Destiny, and the Quiet Struggle of Classrooms

There are moments when the private weather inside a person — a flicker of hope, a cloud of fatigue, an ember of curiosity — pushes outward and nudges the world. I have long thought of thoughts as magnetic fields: invisible, directional, capable of attracting, repelling, and neutralizing one another. That metaphor has guided many of my reflections on teaching, companionship, and the odd ways destiny and choice braid together.

We are all struggling, quietly

A recent piece on the tensions between students and teachers captured something I’ve observed repeatedly: people in shared systems are individually carrying storms they seldom speak of Students’ take vs teachers’ take: ‘We’re all struggling, but nobody’s saying it out loud’. Reading it, I felt the familiar tug — the classroom as a field where many small, private vectors sum into a public force. Each student and teacher brings an inner vector; the classroom experience is the resultant.

That idea connects to other fragments I keep returning to: personal testimonies of survival and faith, podcasts that collect quiet human narratives, guides on grief, and communities that hold others when words fail. I skimmed a few such spaces recently — reflections on testimony and faith Short Christian Testimonies, conversations carried by long-form audio The Kevin Miller Podcast, and practical guidance on grieving a pet Stages of Grief After Losing a Pet — and I noticed the same pattern: private inner currents that, when acknowledged, change outcomes.

When fields collide: teachers and students

I taught because I wanted to change the field — to orient vectors toward curiosity and resilience. Yet teaching taught me the limits of directed intent. Even the strongest positive thought-field — a teacher’s conviction, a parent’s encouragement — will be refracted by other fields: family stress, social isolation, institutional strain. A Times of India article reminding us that "nobody’s saying it out loud" is also a reminder that many fields are unmeasured.

I think of three ways these fields interact:

• Alignment: When internal states of teacher and student point in similar directions, the classroom becomes a conduit. Small joys amplify; learning accelerates.
• Cancellation: Opposing vectors can neutralize. A teacher’s optimism can be dampened by a student’s despair, and vice versa.
• Emergence: Interference patterns produce unexpected outcomes — empathy, rebellion, breakthrough, surrender.

These are not metaphors to romanticize difficulty; they are analytic lenses. They help me see why institutional fixes alone often fail. You cannot change a classroom only by rearranging schedules or curricula if the unspoken atmospheres remain charged.

Destiny, choice, and the persistent question: "Are you my true companion?"

I have watched destiny show up as patterns I didn’t plan: projects that found me, relationships that shaped my work, losses that refined my priorities. Yet I remain convinced that our fields — the steady cultivation of thought, attention, and intention — tilt probabilities. Destiny may offer a terrain; our thoughts draw the map.

The private question that keeps returning to me is simple and existential: "Are you my true companion?" It is not only about romantic companionship. It is about alignment with people, places, and practices that mirror our best inner vectors. When I ask that question of a student, a colleague, or a path, I am testing resonance: does this person or practice reinforce the magnetic direction I want to dwell in?

Sometimes the answer is yes. Sometimes the answer is no and that rejection is mercy: it forces reorientation. I have learned to treat such answers as data about which fields I should amplify and which I should let dissipate.

Practical tenderness: small acts that change fields

If thoughts are fields, then acts are instruments that shape them. I don’t mean grand gestures. I mean small, consistent choices that nudge the atmosphere:

• Naming struggle aloud. The Times of India piece reminded me that silence compounds isolation. Naming the storm weakens its hold.
• Holding space for testimony. Stories — whether public or whispered — reorder attention Short Christian Testimonies.
• Listening longer. Podcasts and long-form conversations teach the slow art of presence The Kevin Miller Podcast.
• Teaching grief language. Loss visits classrooms too; we need frameworks to sit with it Stages of Grief After Losing a Pet.

These acts do not guarantee outcomes. But they change the field enough that new possibilities can emerge.

A quiet invitation

I keep returning to the magnetism of thought because it helps me reconcile an odd humility with stubborn agency. Destiny sets contours; inner life redraws the margins. We are not absolved of responsibility by the vastness of circumstance, nor are we punished by the smallness of our power.

If there is a single, practical ethic I’ve adopted, it is this: make your inner field generative rather than consumptive. That means cultivating curiosity, confessing struggle, and aligning — where possible — with companions who lift rather than cancel.

What are your reflections on the interplay between the thought-fields you carry and the paths they create? I remain convinced that the answer sketched across such reflections is where both healing and true teaching begin.

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Regards,
Hemen Parekh