India is steadily improving in terms of industrial depth to become a global superpower, a report has said. 

“The challenge before India is to become a more technologically capable, industrially mature and structurally resilient one. It will have to enhance its ability to manufacture precision and high-end industrial machinery that can produce other machines, the report from India Narrative said.

It further highlighted that it has a long way to go in developing dense, vertically integrated manufacturing ecosystems seen in China, South Korea or Taiwan.

Long a services powerhouse, India is now advancing with Production‑Linked Incentives (PLI) and the ‘Make in India’ push to semiconductor clusters in Gujarat, Tamil Nadu and Karnataka.

If India succeeds, it could emerge as an advanced industrial and technological power, and if it fails, the country “will still continue to grow and modernise, but without fully overcoming its structural constraints or its vulnerabilities”.

Though IMF projects India to become the world’s third-largest economy within the next few years, India remains heavily dependent on external sources for many of the products, technologies and systems powering its development, the report noted.

The other challenges are dependency on energy and critical inputs. While India still imports 85 per cent of its crude oil and 50 per cent of natural gas, the country has diversified its supply chains, expanded renewable capacity and accelerated domestic processing initiatives for battery materials and other critical inputs.

The country is also heavily reliant on China for processing and supply chains, which affects the competitiveness of EVs, renewables, electronics and defence systems.

Fertiliser has a direct bearing on food security, but India currently imports over 70 per cent of potash, phosphates and other products from Russia, Saudi Arabia, China and Morocco.

Such a vulnerability can easily induce food inflation and farmer distress during supply shocks, the report cautioned.

The report reminded us that current global powers are also dependent on many resources, but they overcame it through industrial depth, technological capability and diversified supply chains.

Indian engineers and technology professionals helped power companies like Google⁠ and Microsoft⁠ but India did not build similar companies and manufacturing ecosystems with such technological depth and global reach, it noted.