Media and entertainment projected to be $100-billion industry by 2030: Apurva Chandra

The Indian media and entertainment industry is among the fastest growing media industries in the world and is projected to reach $100 billion by 2030, Apurva Chandra, secretary, ministry of information and broadcasting (MIB), said on Tuesday. 

Addressing the inaugural session of FICCI Frames Fast Track 2022 in Mumbai today, Chandra said, “India will be a $10 trillion economy in the next 10 years, we should target that the media and entertainment sector should grow to more than $100 billion by 2030.” 

“The Ministry of Information and Broadcasting will do whatever it takes to support the M&E sector and help it grow,” Chandra said. 

Chandra announced that Invest India is going to be leveraged in order to bring in higher foreign investment into India in the film sector.  

“The Ministry has merged various film units under one; NFDC based in Mumbai is going to be the hub of the cinematic arm of the government. With this, we want to revamp the Film Facilitation Office. We are going to hand this over to Invest India, the main investment arm created by the government under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, to attract industry to India,” he said. 

“More than $100 billion of FDI is coming to India this year. We want to leverage Invest India to bring in foreign investment, we will reach out to foreign filmmakers to come to India,” Chandra added. 

The government will work with states to facilitate and promote film shooting in India. “Recently at Cannes Film Festival, we announced Incentive Scheme for Audio-Visual Co-production and Incentive Scheme for Shooting of Foreign Films in India. With incentives given by states too, it becomes a viable and attractive package for filmmakers.” 

“Over the past 5-6 years, the number of theatres has been on a decline. We need to reverse this trend. We will assign the Film Facilitation Office to work with Invest India to come up with a single-window portal for opening theatres, so that more and more theatres can come up and the public gets more avenues to watch the magic of films in theatres. We will also work with the states to create a Model Theatre Policy, so that the states can adopt and work on the same,” he said. 

Observing that viewing habits of people have changed due to Covid-19 pandemic, the secretary said, “...if price points are right, people can afford theatres. The craving to go to the theatres is there, so we need to work on how we can bring people back to theatres,” he said.

He underlined the importance of Media & Entertainment Skills Council in creating more jobs in the sector.

“Many people are now watching content on OTT platforms, but pace of content creation has increased, giving more jobs to more people. Media & Entertainment Skills Council has a big role to play in this, since skilling is the most important part in creating more jobs,” Chandra said.