Govt forms animation, visual effects, gaming and comics promotion task force

In keeping with announcements made in the Union Budget 2022, the government has constituted a task force – AVGC (Animation, Visual Effects, Gaming and Comics) Promotion Task Force -- aimed at promoting the AVGC sector and tapping its potential to serve domestic markets and global demand. This task force has to submit its first action plan within 90 days.

The task force aims to “provide focused thrust for the growth of the sector by driving the institutional efforts to guide the policies of growth for this sector, establish standards for AVGC education in India, actively collaborate with industry and international AVGC institutes, and enhance the global positioning of the Indian AVGC industry,” according to a Ministry of Information and Broadcasting communiqué. Its another aim is to enhance exports and attract foreign direct investment (FDI) into the sector. 

This task force will be helmed by secretary of Information and Broadcasting Ministry and will comprise secretaries of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship Ministry, Higher Education department of the Education Ministry, Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) and Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT).

It will also have industry partners – Biren Ghosh (Country Head at Technicolor India); Ashish Kulkarni (Founder of Punaryug Artvision); Keitan Yadav (COO and VFX Producer at Redchillies VFX); Chaitanya Chinchlikar (CTO at Whistling Woods International); Kishore Kichili (Senior VP and country head at Zynga India) and Neeraj Roy (CEO and MD at Hungama Digital Media Entertainment).

It also includes stakeholders from governments of Karnataka, Maharashtra and Telangana and heads of education bodies like All India Council of Technical Education (AICTE), National Council of Educational Research and Training and representatives of MESC, FICCI and CII.

It further states that India can capture 5 per cent or around $40 billion of the global market share in the animation, visual effects, gaming and comic (AVGC) sector by 2025 coupled with 25-30 per cent annual growth and creating over 1.60 lakh new jobs annually. The sector also has the potential to become torchbearer of ‘Create in India’ and ‘Brand India’.

Also read: Budget 2022: Media & entertainment industry calls AVGC task force progressive