Government to introduce UG, PG courses, applied games and books in schools to promote AVGC sector

In a bid to make audio visual, gaming and comic (AVGC) education as sought after as medical and engineering, a government-appointed task force has suggested starting globally recognised undergraduate and postgraduate courses and tapping talent at the school level leveraging the National Education Policy.

The AVGC Task Force, chaired by Apurva Chandra, secretary of the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, has also recommended to the government to launch a National AVGC-XR Mission with a budget outlay for integrated promotion of the sector and a 'Create in India' campaign on the lines of ‘Make in India’ with an exclusive focus on content creation. XR refers to Extended Reality, an umbrella term used to describe immersive technologies that can merge the physical and virtual worlds.

The AVGC Task Force was announced by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman in her budget speech this year to promote the AVGC sector which has been growing at 16 per cent year-on-year to emerge as a USD three-billion market. "The AVGC sector currently accounts for nearly one per cent of the global market. India's share can rise to six per cent and the sector has the potential to create 20 lakh jobs in the next 10 years," Chandra told reporters here. He said the AVGC sector was a sunrise sector after information technology.

The task force submitted its report 'Realising AVGC-XR Sector Potential in India' to Information and Broadcasting Minister Anurag Thakur last week.

Ashish Kulkarni, founder of Punnaryug Artivision and a member of the task force, said the recommendations given by the task force could lead to the creation of a dedicated roadmap for careers in the AVGC sector on the lines of medical and engineering.

Chandra said India was emerging as a primary destination for high-end, skill-based activities in the AVGC sector with a number of Hollywood studios doing post-production work in the country.