India, April 16 -- More than a decade after the launch of Make in India, manufacturing remains central to India's growth strategy. The ambition-to raise manufacturing's share of GDP from about 15-16% to 25%-has been reiterated across policy documents, industrial corridors, and Production Linked Incentive (PLI) schemes spanning fourteen sectors. Billions in fiscal support and regulatory effort are tied to this goal. Yet a striking irony remains: India continues to measure manufacturing output far too slowly.

The most comprehensive manufacturing dataset, the Annual Survey of Industries (ASI), is released with a lag of 18-24 months. Manufacturing Gross Value Added (GVA) in the National Accounts Statistics (NAS) becomes available about a yea...