Over the last two decades, India’s participation in global value chains and international production networks have improved, but the domestic value added embodied in gross exports has exhibited a fluctuating trend. In 2020, India launched the “Atmanirbhar Bharat Abhiyan,” where enhancement of the DVA content of exports can be considered as an underlying objective. The impact of various factors of production and other drivers on India’s DVA content in select manufacturing exports have been identified in this paper with help of trade in value added data for 2000–18. The empirical results indicate that the focus on export and FDI promotion policies by itself will not lead to either self-reliance or address employment worries in India. A coordinated effort towards labour skill augmentation along with technology transfer will be instrumental in this regard.
