Legal work for manufacturers and the trade that moves their output: incentive schemes and industrial licensing, technology transfer and IP, supply chain and carrier contracts, export control and customs.
Manufacturing in India is regulated at two levels at once. A plant is licensed, cleared and inspected under central and state law, and the same plant is also the subject of an industrial policy that offers incentives against conditions: production thresholds, domestic value addition, investment timelines. The legal questions that follow are rarely about one statute. An incentive claim turns on how an agreement was drafted; an export shipment turns on a classification made years earlier; a joint venture turns on which technology may lawfully cross a border and on what terms.
Incentives carry conditions
The production-linked incentive schemes, the semiconductor schemes, FAME and the state electric vehicle policies all operate the same way: a benefit is granted against undertakings that must be met and evidenced over a period of years. Eligibility is decided on documents: the constitution of the applicant, the scope of the investment, the point at which value is added in India.
Semicon 2.0, notified on 31 August 2026, shows how much of that work happens before the money is discussed. Fiscal support for a silicon wafer fab is 40 per cent of eligible capital expenditure on a pari passu basis, 35 per cent for compound, display and advanced packaging units, and 25 per cent for legacy packaging. Reaching any of those percentages requires three things first: a minimum capital investment for the proposed unit, a minimum revenue already earned in one of the three financial years before the application, counted across group companies and joint ventures, and production grade technology the applicant already owns or licenses. The revenue condition cannot be satisfied by the project it funds, and a technology licence that is terminable or limited by field of use may meet the condition on the day of application and fail it later.
A disbursement withheld or clawed back is challenged, in practice, before the authority that granted it and then in writ jurisdiction before the High Court.
Technology that crosses a border
Advanced manufacture usually begins with technology that is licensed rather than owned. That places three regimes over one transaction: the licence itself, which allocates improvements, field of use and termination; the export control and dual-use rules that decide whether the technology may be transferred at all; and, in defence, the offset obligations and security clearances that attach to the contract. Aerospace and defence adds the acquisition procedure and the licensing regime under the Industries (Development and Regulation) Act, 1951.
The contract chain
Output has to move. Carrier liability, demurrage, warehousing terms, customs classification and GST treatment are settled in the contract chain long before a loss occurs, and a dispute over a damaged consignment is usually a dispute over which document in that chain governs. Cross-border trade adds DGFT licensing and FEMA compliance on the payment leg.
