India’s development story continues to be marked by one stubborn fact: its underperformance in labour-intensive manufacturing. Whether one looks at output, exports, or employment, India has remained below its potential. Take apparel exports. In 2005, India held about 3 percent of the global market. Almost two decades later, even after China began vacating space, the share is unchanged. Bangladesh, once behind, has surged to nearly 8 percent. Conventional wisdom blames India’s regulatory environment, especially restrictive labour laws, for keeping plants small. But the deeper question is not why Indian plants remain modest, but why so few have grown into the very large factories. And the answer lies in a phenomenon that has been hiding in plain sight: the rise of “multi-plants.”