The AVGC (Animation, VFX, Gaming and Comics) industry has witnessed tremendous growth with newer dimensions and opportunities opening everyday. The development of this industry for content creation also brings socio economic development. Now, adding to the already existing centres of excellence (CoE) in many cities of the country, Mohali in Punjab is emerging as a hub of AVGC with a new green revolution in creative technologies.
To discuss the ‘Opportunities in Punjab for AVGC sector’ Member of Parliament-Lok Sabha Manish Tewari and Assemblage founder and CEO A K Madhavan, popularly known as Mad Max, were in conversation at the CII SummitX 2020 on 2 September.
Moderated by Madhavan, Tiwari informed that the government is going to come up with a Film City at Mohali which is acutely focused on this frontier with focuses on animation, VFX, Gaming, AR, VR and others. This has skilled tremendous hope for this sector in Punjab. In 2011, MIB (ministry of information and broadcasting) took a decision to set up a CoE in Mohali and allotted 12 acres of land for it. Unfortunately the project couldn’t take off as we failed to crystallize the public-private partnership of the model and despite my pushing in 2012, the planning commission had confusion as to how this model would be structured.
He said: “In 2014, the BJP government came into power and relocated this project to Mumbai in Goregaon. I’m unaware of the current status now. Subsequently, I was looking at developments in my constituency and came to enquire about a land which is owned by MIB and I wrote to Prakash Javadekar to either do something with it or return it to the Government of Punjab. But we didn’t receive any response, so the Government of Punjab cancelled the allotment and took it back which is about five minutes from Mohali Airport. I spoke to the CM about utilising this diverse land to nurture our creative talents and liberties to open a national CoE in AVG or AI (artificial intelligence) to bring value to Mohali which has emerged as a centre of software development. Infosys campus is also coming up here and others. Therefore there’s a huge ecosystem of vibrancy and vitality in here. Cost of living is also economical. The cultural ethos of Punjab is diverse, rich and does not belittle any job or occupation. Mohali, Chandigarh and Panchkula the tri-city is seamlessly merging into each other’s creative liberties to promote this venture as an AVGC hub.”
Tewary also stated that they’re actively looking to create an ecosystem, upskill resources, set up institutions and make another state contribute to this space.
