The Budget announcement of the formation of Task Force for AVGC Promotion has come after years of efforts put in by the industry stakeholders who see the sector contributing significantly to the Indian economy

In a major boost to AVGC sector, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman has announced to set up a task force for Animation, Visual Effects, Gaming, and Comics (AVGC) sector with an aim to develop world-class creative talent to serve domestic as well as global demand.

“The Animation, Visual Effects, Gaming, and Comics (AVGC) task force will be set up to build domestic capacity to serve our markets and global demand,” said Nirmala Sitharaman in her Budget speech for the financial year 2022-2023.

In the past couple of years the AVGC industry stakeholders had been vocal in demanding the government to create an AVGC taskforce and AVGC Skills Council given the sector’s immense potential in creating jobs and making significant contribution to the Indian economy. The two editions of CII Global Summit FX in 2020 and 2021 have created a framework and recommendations for AVGC Sector, going forward.

“Delighted that the Government of India has accepted our request to set up an AVGC task force to provide strategic direction and provide a fillip to the sector. Thanks to @MIB and the @CII for their encouragement of this initiative. I shall work to ensure that we partner the government to achieve exponential growth in revenues, jobs and global market share,” said Biren Ghose, Chairman, CII National AVGC Committee 2022 & Country Head Technicolor India. 

“I think what is really important now is that we are moving towards a new experience economy. We have young people who are tuning into our content. I think they are going to experience some things that are even beyond conventional storytelling. Education too has changed forever. I believe that the tools and technologies, practices and protocols that we have created are going to influence every industry,” he said.

Biren Ghose believes that “technology has moved from being purely an enabler to storytelling to becoming very much center stage”. “The way in which India can innovate with digital technologies is going to put us in a really good position in the competition that’s going to happen between countries as we aspire to take market share on a global basis in the media and entertainment sector,” he said.

Saying that the Budget announcement of the formation of taskforce for AVGC Promotion has come at the most appropriate time, Ashish SK, Chairman, FICCI AVGC- XR Forum & Founder of PUNNARYUG ARTVISION PVT LTD, said that after setting a strong foundation in the last two decades the Indian AVGC – XR is poised to grow phenomenally in coming decade.

“The creative skills from India needs nurturing to a great extend to enable the growth of the AVGC – XR sector. Setting up of a task force for the promotion of Indian AVGC sector will definitely bring in a great focus on positioning Indian AVGC sector for services exports, co-productions, growth of Indigenous intellectual property and its consumption patterns within India and overseas,” he added.

He observed that the Indian AVGC – XR sector is expected to have a major share of the media and entertainment industry. “The horizon & use cases of AVGC – XR verticals have expanded beyond its day to day defined utility in Architecture, Life Science, Legal, Education, Industrial, Urban Planning, Sports, Digital universe, Metaverse etc apart from media &entertainment,” said the Founder of PUNNARYUG ARTVISION PVT LTD.

The AVGC industry has thanked Anurag Singh Thakur, Union Minister of Information & Broadcasting , for his unconditional support and belief in the AVCG sector as the champion of Atmanirbhar Bharat. “If we could tell stories that project new India and its products through our media, it will support our allied industries and sectors,” Anuraag Thakur had said.

He also added that he believed India has the potential to create “creative incubators that identify and groom talent in graphic design, sound animation and visual effects,” and capture its fair share of global visual effects, animations, graphics and sound market.

Chandrajit Banerjee, Director General, CII, believes that the AVGC sector holds great potential in contributing towards India’s 5-trillion dollar economy target. “The sector can really double its growth rate and easily become about a trillion rupees sector by 2025. And the amount of jobs it can create is such a powerful tool. We can easily create about 2.5 million additional jobs, making it one of the most important and exciting sunrise sectors to nurture,” he said.

Rajan Navani, Chairman, CII’s India@ 75 Council and Vice Chairman and Managing Director, Jet Line Group of Companies, said that Indian AVGC sector grew at a fast pace during the pandemic, as “we have a strong 300 million Gen Z population that probably no other country has”.

He added that India has now positioned itself for being able to be a part of the explosive growth. “eSports, where we look at professional sports gamers, is an area that is increasingly becoming popular around the world. It’s a very unique confluence of technology, youth culture, social networking, entertainment, community, sportsmanship, sports, entertainment, all coming together,” he observed.

According to K Madhavan, Chairman, CII National Committee on Media and Entertainment and Country Manager & President The Walt Disney Company India & Star India, the goal of India’s media and entertainment industry is to reach $100 billion by 2030. “The growth target remains ambitious but not difficult to achieve, provided we get the right support from policymakers and the government. India already produces 160,000 hours of content every year, which is the highest in the world. We’ll see the demand for original content to grow every day and more and more consumers getting access to the internet in tier-2 and tier-3 cities.”

Madhavan said that there has to be a clear cut roadmap for AVGC exports, creating global b2b opportunities, encouraging increasing convergence initiative between creators and tech innovators, and distribution hubs. 

Addressing the CII SummitFX 2021 – Global AVGC and Immersive Media Summit, Piyush Goyal, Union Minister of Commerce and Industry, Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution, and Textiles had highlighted that the AVGC sector is growing at 9% and is expected to reach ~Rs 3 lakh crore (US$ 43.93 bn) by 2024 (at a CAGR of 13.5%).

“AVGC is truly one area which has India’s creative talent at its very best. India’s agility and resilience that you have already demonstrated in the last 16-17 months through the COVID period has shown to the world that we are a trusted partner,” the minister said.

He said in the Spirit of “Local goes Global: Make in India for the world”, AVGC sector must look beyond boundaries to reach new horizons.

When we look at various areas of value creation in the Indian M&E sector, the AVGC sector stands out owing to its great potential in taking India’s M&E story to the next level, said Apurva Chandra, Secretary, Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, while speaking at the 10th edition of CII Big Picture Summit  2021. He also announced that the government was working towards creating a National Centre of Excellence for AVGC to provide a major boost for further development of the sector in India.

“AVGC is no longer a sunrise sector. The sun has already risen in the AVGC sector,” said Neerja Sekhar, Additional Secretary, Ministry of Information & Broadcasting, as she highlighted that the National Centre of Excellence for AVGC is a unique project where the industry needs to work together with the government to make it a success.

As per a report on Indian M&E sector released during the CII Big Picture Summit 2021 by the Boston Consulting Group India, VFX and Gaming can be the next IT-BPM boom and play a fundamental role in India’s M&E by 2030 with potential to create 75,000-120,000 direct and indirect jobs if India scales up its AVGC sector through structural interventions.

The Indian audiovisual sector is also a champion sector recognized by the Government of India. The Ministry of Commerce and Industry has identified this sector as a high potential for increasing job creation and export earnings for India. It was forecasted that the industry could create 2-3x growth in jobs over 4 years. Incentive packages and innovative forms of new fast-tracked education for skill sets were being discussed.

More than 70 per cent of the AVGC revenues comes from AVGC services to the global markets. The AVGC sector in India is poised to drive a similar growth to what the IT industry saw 20 years ago. Audiovisual exports in the next five to 10 years will be amongst the top 5 sectors contributing to the Indian GDP.