A new industrial policy, which has been in the works for over two years and a draft of which was circulated for consultation in December last year, has now been pushed to the backburner with the government firmly placing its bets for now on its flagship production-linked incentive (PLI) scheme to drive up manufacturing and catalyse private investments. The industrial policy, expected to be released this year, would have been the third such framework in the history of independent India, replacing the historic policy of 1991 that came in the backdrop of the balance of payment crisis, ushering in the…