PurposeThe impact of COVID-19 has caused a recession in economies all over the world. In this context, the current study aims to analyze the prevailing economic scenario using a machine learning approach and suggest sustainable measures to recover the global economy taking the case of Make in India (MII) initiative of developing the economy as a base for the study.Design/methodology/approachA well-known topic modeling technique – Latent Dirichlet allocation (LDA) algorithm has been employed to extract useful information characterizing the existing state of selected sectors under the MII initiative alongside catalytic policies that have been implemented for the same. The textual data acts as the base of the study upon which suggestions are provided.FindingsThe findings obtained suggest that digital transformation will play a key role in concerned sectors to optimize the performance of manufacturing organizations. Additionally, inter-relationship between Key Performance Indicators for the economy's revival is crucial for effective utilization of foreign direct investment resources.Practical implicationsThe novel efforts to utilize MII initiative as a case present crucial information which can be used by policy makers and various other stakeholders across the globe to enhance decision-making and draft legislation across different sectors to empower the economy.Originality/valueThe study presents a novel approach to utilize the MII initiative by identifying important measures for crucial sectors and associated policies that have been presented by employing a text mining approach which in itself makes it unique in its contribution to research literature.