The Union Budget 2023 brings an announcement of three centres of excellence (COEs) for Artificial Intelligence (AI) being set up in top educational institutions. This announcement is an indirect boost for the AVGC-XR industry. However, there was no detailed mention of the sector like that of previous year’s formation of the ‘AVGC Taskforce’.
Regarding the setting up of COE for AI, the union finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman shared, “This will galvanise the AI ecosystem and nurture quality human resources in the field.”
This year’s budget adopts seven priorities that will guide the government to Amrit Kaal. They are:
- Inclusive Development
- Reaching the last mile
- Infrastructure and investment
- Unleashing the potential
- Green Growth
- Youth Power
- Finance Sector
In the priority list, they have a special mention for the ‘youth power’. The finance minister mentioned that they have formulated the National Education Policy (NEP) focusing on skilling, job creation and business opportunities. Even that lays emphasis on training related to coding, AI, robotics, IOT and so on.
She further mentioned that in order to empower the youth and help the Amrit Peedhi realise their dreams, they have formulated a National Education Policy and one focus of this policy is skilling youths by adopting economic policies that facilitate job creation.
“PM Kaushal Vikas Yojna 4.0 will be launched to skill lakhs of youth within the next three years,” she added.
In the previous budget she had stressed on the immense potential of the animation, visual effects, gaming and comics (AVGC) sector in generating employment opportunities.
The AVGC-XR industry has witnessed unprecedented growth rates in recent times, with many global players expressing interest in the Indian talent pool to avail offshore delivery of services as India is now seen as the primary destination for high-end, skill-based activities in the AVGC-XR sector. India possesses the necessary ingredients to become a major contributor to the global AVGC sector.
Furthermore, the AVGC task force headed by I&B Ministry secretary Apurva Chandra had recently submitted a detailed draft policy report to the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting Anurag Thakur. Calling for a ‘National AVGC-XR Mission’ with a budget outlay to be created for integrated promotion and growth of the AVGC sector, they also recommended launching a ‘Create in India’ campaign with exclusive focus on content creation, ‘In India, For India & For World’.
With the announcement of the draft policy, the industry was looking forward to the budget, however the lack of mention of the media and entertainment sector has been quite surprising. Hopefully in the coming months we shall hear some announcements pertaining to the sector.
