With the AVGC industry soaring high worldwide and making its presence felt in the mainstream as well, initiatives for the furtherance of the same are being carried out, everywhere.
Now, India will be joining the list as well, on a big scale. India’s first training institute dedicated to animation, visual effects, gaming and comics is going to be set up in the entertainment hub of India, Mumbai.
Yesterday, the BJP-led Maharashtra government gave a green signal to allot 20 acres of land in the Goregaon Film City premises.The project which was announced a year back would be the first-of-its-kind institute in India and will brought up in collaboration with Union Information and Broadcasting Ministry.
Titled “National Centre for Excellence for Animation, Visual effects, Gaming and Comics”, the institution will be set up and run by the Indian Institute of Mass Communication.
According to Hindustan Times, currently, the land is in the name of state’s culture department and would likely be transferred to the revenue department soon. The revenue department will then make an agreement with the centre and hand over the land.
Speaking to AnimationXpress.com, Federation of Indian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) AVGC Forum, Co-Chairman, Ashish Kulkarini said, “The whole objective that we proposed to the government was to create a National Centre of Excellence for animation, gaming, visual effects and comics on the lines of creating an institute of national importance, so that the right standards are set up and through FICCI, I have been pushing this cause.”
While thanking chief minister Devendra Fadnavis, Kulkarni further stated, “The reason we want to create this as a National Centre of Excellence is that it will also benchmark the quality parameters for teaching and research in this space. We wanted it to be at a place where the largest activity is happening and that’s why Mumbai. The process was very long, but yesterday, the process got finally cleared.”
“So the way it’s really going to work here is… we are going to tie up with some of the institutes from overseas, so that it is truly going to be a national centre of excellence, an incubation centre. It will help all the stakeholders in the industry for AVCG, AR, VR and MR also. It’s going to be mostly the collaborative partnerships, which will naturally take all the stakeholders together and the way it is going to benefit most of the them is…this would be created as an example so that many states can replicate some of these centre of excellences. Even the Media and Entertainment Skills Council has worked really hard to set this up, so the national occupational standards will come from the Media and Entertainment Skills Council.” asserted Kulkarni.