India sets up AVGC task force to become global hub for animation, game development

India’s Information and Broadcasting (I&B) Ministry has set up a task force for the promotion of animation, visual effects, gaming, and comics (AVGC) in the country and will submit its first action plan within 90 days, the ministry said in a statement. 

The plan to create a promotional task force for AVGC in India was announced by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman during the Union Budget speech in February. The goal of the task force is to make India a global hub for game and animation development. 

The I&B ministry said the AVGC promotional task force will be headed by the secretary of the I&B ministry. It will also have secretaries from other ministries including the Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship, Department of Higher Education, Ministry of Electronics and IT, and Department of Promotion of Industry and Internal trade. 

The task force will also include members from the film and gaming industry such as Technicolor country head Biren Ghosh, Redchillies VFX COO Keitan Yadav, Whistling Woods International CTO Chaitanya Chinchlikar, and Zynga India country head Kishore Kichili. 

The use of visual effects in movies is growing in India. Several new movies including the recently released movie RRR have used them. 

The task force will also include representatives from state governments of Karnataka, Maharashtra, and Telangana; heads of educational bodies such as the All India Council of Technical Education, and members of industry bodies such as the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce & Industry (FICCI) and Confederation of Indian Industry (CII). 

Skill development is one of the top goals of the AVGC task force. The I&B ministry said it will lay down standards for AVGC education and training and will actively seek the collaboration of international institutes. The task force is expected to make recommendations on creating a national curriculum framework for courses at graduation, postgraduate, and doctorate level. 

In addition to skilling, the task force will also frame a national AVGC policy, create more job opportunities, provide incentives to attract FDI in AVGC, and help homegrown startups expand and export to the global market. 

The emphasis on making India a hub for game and animation development stems from the recent boom in gaming all over the world. India has emerged as one of the fastest-growing gaming markets. To be sure, the online gaming industry alone is expected to cross $2 billion in revenue by 2023, according to an August 2021 report by EY- All India Gaming Federation (AIGF) report. The number of online gamers is expected to grow to 510 million in 2022 from 360 million in 2020. 

The I&B ministry claims India has the potential to capture 5% ($40 billion) of the global AVGC market share by 2025 and create over 1,60,000 new jobs every year.