Why India's Medical-Device Trade Gap Has Widened Despite Years Of PLI Support

By Dev Chandrasekhar

Walk into a district hospital that has just been upgraded under any of the recent public health programmes and count the origin labels. The gloves, the intravenous sets, the catheters, the disposable syringes are all Indian, and very likely made by companies that also ship the same products to Europe and Africa.

The CT scanner, the MRI machine, the patient monitors, the immunoassay analyser in the laboratory and the implants in the orthopaedic ward are not. Some pieces do carry a 'Made in India' sticker, but that only means they were assembled here. The X-ray tube and the detector inside still weren't.

India makes what is cheap and produced in the hundreds of millions, and imports what is expensive and precision-engineered.

Six years of policy attention, a production-linked incentive scheme, an export push and a stated ambition to become a manufacturing hub for medical devices have not altered that shape. They have made both sides of it bigger. 

It matters because these are the machines that set the price of the most expensive care in the system, and a bill paid in dollars grows with every fall in the rupee, whatever the ‘Make in India’ count says.

The Math Hasn’t Moved

India imported close to Rs 89,000 crore of medical devices in FY26, up 17% from about Rs 76,000 crore in FY25, on figures the industry association AiMeD released in June.

Exports have not kept pace. The last full-year figure on record is from FY25, between Rs 31,120 crore and Rs 33,824 crore depending on the rupee conversion used for the $4,014 million Parliament was told about in July 2025. 

Set against FY26 imports, that makes the import bill roughly 2.7 times exports and the deficit more than Rs 55,000 crore.

Go back to FY20, and imports were Rs 41,709 crore, according to the series the Department of Pharmaceuticals has placed on the open-data platform. The jump of 41% in FY22 alone set the pace. The compounding since then is a little over 13% a year.

The Directorate General of Commercial Intelligence and Statistics count, the commerce ministry's official series, runs higher still. As reported by Medical Buyer, it has FY26 imports at Rs 94,664 crore against exports of Rs 28,106 crore, a ratio of 3.4 to one.

One caution before anyone repeats those numbers. The report carrying them was published on 19 March 2026, twelve days before the fiscal year closed, which makes the print a partial-year reading, most likely April to December. 

FY24 full-year exports on the same series were Rs 31,673 crore, so a lower FY26 figure only makes sense if it is partial, and if the import side is similarly truncated, the full-year deficit is wider than the headline.

Different outlets also use different scopes, and a broader classification puts FY25 imports at Rs 1.37 lakh crore against Rs 42,360 crore of exports. 

Every version of the series, narrow or wide, agrees that imports grow faster than exports, and that the ratio has run between about two and three and a half to one for the whole period.

Hospital-level import dependence, at 70 to 80% of what is used, appears in every industry and government source going back to the start of the decade, from AiMeD in 2023 to the US trade department and the IMPRI policy review this year.

It has not budged in any of them, even though the 2023 National Medical Devices Policy set out to bring it down to about 30%.

Banks and Regulators Rally Around Agentic AI to Fight Fraud

By Pritha Pahari

What?

AI-powered fraud detection, already running inside India's banking system, took a step further at Global Fintech Fest 2026 in Mumbai, as bank leaders and infrastructure bodies showcased what's being built next.

Delivering his keynote, Challa Sreenivasulu Setty, chairman of India's biggest public lender, the State Bank of India (SBI), said AI was not new to fraud-fighting at SBI.

"We are using conventional AI-based approaches in credit assessment and cash flow-based lending, expanded the use of AI in risk management, including early warning systems, fraud detection, anti-money laundering monitoring, and proactive risk management," he said.

The next stage, he said, was agentic AI. "Agents can work across the financial life cycle of a transaction and a customer, strengthening fraud and new account detection, supporting KYC, AML, and remunerative processes, accelerating loan appraisal and underwriting, enabling intelligent reconciliation."

UIDAI launched a Face Authentication Software Development Kit (SDK) and a separate testing sandbox where developers can test the technology safely before deploying it. The tools are aimed at reducing identity fraud.

UIDAI part-time chairperson Neelkanth Mishra said, "We are also using AI extensively for fraud detection. The fraudsters keep getting smarter, but we are also getting smarter." Director Sanjeev Yadav explained the SDK brings AI-based liveness detection directly onto users' phones, cutting the friction that previously came from switching between apps.

NPCI also unveiled two agentic AI platforms, AiNxt, letting enterprises build and deploy their own AI agents, and AtOM, which manages partner onboarding across UPI. AtOM produces digitally signed, machine-readable records to create verifiable audit trails for compliance, a feature that supports fraud accountability even though NPCI has not marketed either platform specifically as a fraud-detection tool.

Why

Setty flagged the next challenge this creates: fraud itself is turning autonomous. "We may also find ourselves in an AI versus AI environment, which will require us to combine identity intelligence, behavioural intelligence, transaction intelligence, and real-time risk assessment," he said, adding that banks must extend "know your customer" practices to "know your agent."

Separately, Rajiv Gauba of NITI Aayog urged the wider fintech sector toward the same goal: "The power of AI should be leveraged by the fintechs to strengthen our systems against fraud... more kind of nuanced and customised."

Why It Matters

Financial fraud is becoming faster, more sophisticated and increasingly automated, making traditional rule-based checks less effective on their own.

As financial institutions adopt AI agents, they will also need stronger systems to monitor what these agents do and hold them accountable.

Industry leaders pointed out how the shift could make fraud prevention more proactive, rather than simply responding after a fraudulent transaction has taken place.

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648 millimetres

That’s how much rainfall India has received so far this monsoon season, which runs from June to September, according to India Meteorological Department data published. 

That’s 15% below the long-term average of 760.6 millimetres.

Impact: The weak and uneven monsoon is raising concerns about crop yields, food supplies and rural incomes. Crops including rice, soybean, cotton, pulses and sugarcane are facing moisture stress, while insufficient September rain could also leave less soil moisture for the winter crop season. 

Crisil expects a moderate hit to kharif farm incomes, while other analysts warn that weaker output could push up food prices and increase imports of commodities such as edible oils, pulses and sugar.

Context: The pressure comes as India is also dealing with the economic fallout from the West Asia war. Crude oil prices have approached $100 a barrel, raising fuel and transport costs and adding to inflationary pressure. 

With food and fuel prices already rising, the combination of a weak monsoon and expensive oil could squeeze household purchasing power, put pressure on the rupee and complicate the Reserve Bank of India’s policy choices.

UPI Moves Beyond Payments

Your next UPI payment could now come with even less friction. At the Global Fintech Fest 2026, the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) showed off new features to make paying for things easier and smarter.

Fast Facts: On Thursday, NPCI launched UPI Tap & Pay, which lets you make payments by tapping your phone against a shop's payment device. These payments can also work offline, making UPI useful even when your internet connection is weak.

After bringing face and fingerprint scanning to everyday payments last year, NPCI is simplifying things even further with a quick and simple tap-to-pay experience.

Since it launched, people have made over 6.29 billion payments using face or fingerprint scans as of August 31, 2026.

NPCI also launched MyUPI, a smart AI tool designed to make UPI safer, more reliable, and easier to use.

It gives you a single screen to view all your payments, bank accounts, and automatic monthly bills across different apps and banks.

Another major announcement was credit through UPI. Farmers and small business owners with approved government loans (like Kisan Credit Card or MUDRA) can now spend directly from their credit limits using UPI.

Because the network is so huge, millions of people can use these new features. UPI processed a record 24.51 billion transactions worth ₹29.82 lakh crore in August 2026, with 752 banks connected.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi also called for UPI to connect with more international payment systems to make sending and receiving money across borders easier.

Forecast: These updates show UPI growing from a simple payment app into a complete financial system that can support loans, offline payments, global money transfers, and eventually payments made automatically by AI tools.

All Pilots To Face Drug Testing

India's aviation regulator has directed airlines to conduct a one-time drug test on all pilots by July next year, following recent cases of crew found under the influence, Bloomberg reported. Testing is already underway across carriers and a formal announcement is expected by the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA).

Catch Up Quick: The move follows a freak hydraulic failure on an Air India-operated Airbus A320, which caused the autopilot to disengage and the plane to drop about 300 feet after landing from Phuket on August 4. The captain later tested positive for illegal drugs, prompting India's Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau to flag the discovery as a "serious concern."

The Core earlier reported why the DGCA may no longer be fit to regulate the country’s aviation boom.

Setup: The government plans to finish new, stricter drug rules for pilots by the end of the month, said Civil Aviation Minister Kinjarapu Rammohan Naidu.

GLP-1 Race Heats Up

India’s GLP-1 drug market could reach Rs 157 billion by FY2032, as cheaper generic versions of weight-loss and diabetes drugs expand access, according to Kotak Institutional Equities. 

Fast Facts: The brokerage expects the number of Indians using GLP-1 therapies to rise from about 275,000 currently to 6.6 million by FY2032. Semaglutide generics entered the market after a key Novo Nordisk patent expired in March 2026. There are now 33 generic brands from 16 companies, intensifying competition and pushing prices lower. Kotak expects generic GLP-1s to account for Rs 99 billion of the market by FY2032, with Sun Pharma, Lupin, Torrent, Eris, Alkem, Zydus and Mankind emerging as key players. 

The Turning Point: The opportunity is unlikely to have a single winner. Kotak expects several companies—including Sun Pharma, Lupin, Torrent and Eris—to capture meaningful shares of the growing market. But the market’s rapid early growth may be harder to sustain. Recently, The Core Report hosted Sheetal Sapale of Pharmarack, who said the initial surge in generic anti-obesity drugs is beginning to plateau. That suggests the next phase of growth will depend less on the launch of new generics and more on bringing new patients into treatment.

Food Warning Labels To Tighten

India's Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) told the Supreme Court on Thursday it could implement stricter red warning labels on packaged food "in one go," abandoning its earlier two-phase plan after judges questioned the delay, Reuters reported. The court will issue a written order before Friday.

Context: The FSSAI had proposed labelling products exceeding limits in at least two of three categories, including added sugar, salt or saturated fat, but the bench pressed why single-nutrient violations wouldn't trigger warnings too.

Health experts had also criticised the two-nutrient threshold as an industry-friendly loophole.

Critical Moment: Industry groups have pushed back, arguing labels should be based on per-serving size rather than the proposed per-100 gram benchmarks.

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Crude Has Now Crossed $105

On Episode 975 of The Core Report, financial journalist Govindraj Ethiraj talks to Abhai Laijawala, Chief Investment Officer, India at Lighthouse Canton (and veteran metals analyst) as well as Kunal Pande, National Leader - Cyber, Risk and Compliance Services at KPMG in India.

• Crude Has Now Crossed $105 As The West Asia War Escalates To New Levels

• Chinese President Xi Jinping Will Visit Delhi For The BRICS Summit As Trade Relations Are Strained Again

• US Markets Once Again Cock A Snook At The Treasury Secretary’s Efforts To Rein In Bond Yields

• Why Are Copper Prices Rising So Much And Outlook?

• Tokenisation Of Assets Has Kicked Off In India, What Does It Mean For Investors?

• Apple Raised Prices On ‌its Existing iPhone Lineup In India By As Much As 41%, More Than The US