‘India to shortly become leading quality content producing nation in media, entertainment’

Union Minister of Information and Broadcasting Anurag Thakur on Thursday said in five years, India would be among the leading quality content-producing nations across the globe in the field of media and entertainment.

Addressing the India Forum at Palais des Festivals in Cannes, the minister said that over the years, “Festival de Cannes” had played a significant role in strengthening Indo-French relations. “Today the recognition of our cinematic excellence the world over is set to manifest the country into the ‘content hub’ of the world,” he said.

Diversity of cinematic excellence
Speaking on India’s current presence in Cannes, the Minister said: “India intends to give you – the global audience, a flavour of the country’s cinematic excellence, technological prowess, rich culture and illustrious heritage of storytelling. India’s red carpet presence captured the diversity of our cinematic excellence not only in terms of representation of actors and film makers from various languages and regions, but also OTT platforms, with a strong presence of music composers and a folk artist who have enthralled audiences both young and old.”

He said during the events, the Indian start-ups from the media and entertainment sector would pitch to the best from the world of Animation, Visual Effects, Gaming and Comic (AVGC) along with a strong delegation of animation professionals from the sector.

Over the past eight years, the Central government had envisioned major initiatives to boost co-productions, film shoots and film facilitations in the country, while States like Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh had formulated their own film facilitation policies. Those efforts were expected to expand India’s media and entertainment ecosystem, generating $53 billion annually by 2025, said Mr. Thakur.

The Information and Broadcasting Ministry has decided to launch incentive schemes for the international productions that shoot in India and for official co-productions with foreign countries.

Under the scheme for audio visual co-production, for qualifying projects, Indian co-producers can claim a payable cash reimbursement of up to 30% on qualifying expenditure in India, subject to a maximum of ₹2 crore. The reimbursement will be divided among the producers as per their respective share of financial contribution.

The project should have a “co-production” status given by the Ministry and the participating country/ies, under one of India’s official bi-lateral co-production treaties on audio-visual co-production. The projects with co-production status given after April 1, 2022, are eligible for the incentive.

Foreign films in India
For shooting of foreign films in India, the same incentive will be applicable. An additional 5% bonus up to a maximum of ₹50 lakh can be claimed for employing 15% or more manpower in the country. The international productions with shooting permission from the Ministry and the External Affairs Ministry (for documentaries only) after April 1, 2022, will be eligible.

The incentives, to be provided on the recommendation of a special evaluation committee, will be disbursed in two stages. The final disbursement claim can be made once the project is complete in India. Incentives can be claimed under only one of the schemes. The Hindu