For giving a boost to the growing animation sector in India, the Information and Broadcasting Ministry is planning setting up a joint task force with members of industry bodies.
This task force will help face the challenges of high set-up and production costs, talent shortage and lack of intellectual property protection which daunts the animation industry. The job of the task force will be to forward a roadmap for clearance to the Finance Ministry after consulting and finalizing it with all the stakeholders of the animation industry.
Ambika Soni, Minister for Information and Broadcasting, has reassured that the task force, in addition to focusing on main areas to develop the animation sector, would also look into providing it tax concessions. The minister made the assurance after representatives of Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) presented before her their suggestions for the industry, official sources said. A tax holiday of 10 years has been proposed by FICCI for the animation, gaming and Vfx industry. It also emphasized on localization of the animation content and market development assistance in various ways like co-production treaties, rationalization of customs tariffs for the gaming industry.
As per the industry estimates, the animation industry today stands at Rs 23.2 billion and is expected to grow to Rs 27.8 billion by 2011. The gaming industry is also estimated to go up from Rs 9.8 billion to Rs 14 billion by the year 2011.
Meanwhile, the industry has also asked the government to consider setting up Centres of Excellence for animation, gaming and VFX industry, which also offer opportunities for applied, commercial and other types of arts. Further, on the issue of co-production treaties, it has demanded that pacts with Canada and France had been pending for a while and these should be taken up pro-actively.