The article uses primary survey to enumerate the constraints that Indian industries face while linking into global value chains (GVCs), from the perspective of both labour-intensive textiles and clothing and capital-intensive machinery industries. Eighty Indian firms and industrial associations have been interviewed. Main reasons for low participation of Indian firms in GVCs include weak domestic value chains, fragmented manufacturing units, skills mismatch, low R&D, and poor infrastructure. Particularly, fabrics and garments are India’s weakest links and they face tough competition from China, Bangladesh, Vietnam, etc. India does not have enough capacities to produce big and sophisticated machines, along with small machine tool segment. Accordingly, the article provides policy directions for skill development in India, along with strengthening of domestic value chains, that is, those strategies that can help to develop India’s GVCs in these two industries.