CII commends Ministry of I&B on the release of the AVGC Promotion Taskforce Report

The Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) welcomes the report of AVGC Promotion Taskforce and commends the Ministry of I&B on having released the report which contains several measures recommended for the growth of the Animation, Visual effects, Gaming, Comics, (AVGC) and Extended Reality (AR/VR/MR) sector in India.

As a member of this taskforce, CII has worked closely with the industry participants of the task force and its other stakeholders to scope and recommend several initiatives which have been the request across industry and academia. This will help catapult the AVGC industry to be the USD 100 million sector that has been envisaged in several forums.

CII has been driving the cause of the AVGC-XR industry through its dynamic National AVGC &XR subcommittee under the chairmanship of Mr. Biren Ghose the Country Head of Technicolor Creative Studios. “The AVGC task force has shown great collaboration and synergy and has provided innovative suggestions for the strategy which has been incorporated in the draft national and state AVGC policies.”

The AVGC promotion task force was chaired and steered by the Secretary, Ministry of Information & Broadcasting (MIB) and four subgroups were formed which applied future thought and insights which addressing the objectives for skills and entrepreneurship, higher education and innovation and start-ups in industry. A special subgroup deliberated the recommendations for the gaming industry.

These recommendations, gleaned from committee deliberations and from 2 major national events – CII Summit FX 2022 (national AVGC event) and CII Big Picture Summit [national media & entertainment event across all media sectors] both made recommendations that have found their way into the report and draft policy. The governments intentions towards this AVGC were also signalled by the MIB at both these events. These initiatives include making India’s presence at global market events, turbo charging the skills development and reforming education such that the arts discipline becomes an option to stream talent towards the visual arts from an early age.

“The Prime Minister of India has announced that the AVGC sector can be a ‘soft-power’ taking India’s stories to the world. Accordingly, the proposed policy will be a roadmap towards implementing this vision in a holistic manner building a bridge between government, industry and academia and making India an AVGC hub to the world.” added Biren Ghose.

“The task force has extended valuable recommendations to create an enabling environment to catalyse the growth of gaming sector in India. Its focus on market development, skilling, infrastructure development, easy access to funding and technologies, high quality content, among others would take the Indian gaming industry to new heights if implemented properly,” said Rajan Navani, Chair, CII Sub Committee on Gaming and Founder & CEO, JetSynthesys.

CII will arrange industry consultation on the draft policies published in the report and work towards building a consensus to assist the government in issuing these expeditiously. BCS Bureau