Hyd to get regional centre of Indian Institute of Creative Technology: Sanjay Jaju

Hyderabad: Hyderabad will soon have a regional centre of the Indian Institute of Creative Technology (IICT), which will encourage talent in gaming, animation, and other related sectors.

Its main campus is being built in Mumbai by the Central government on a public private partnership mode. It will serve as a national centre of excellence for animation, visual effects, gaming, comics and extended reality (AVGC-XR), said information and broadcasting secretary Sanjay Jaju.

“The facility in Hyderabad will be set up in the upcoming IMAGE Tower,” he said at the India Game Developer Conference (IGDC 2024), the three-day industry event that began in Hyderabad on Wednesday in Hyderabad.

The new centre will be a key facility for supporting skill requirements of the sector and will also have accelerators and incubators to nurture innovators, startups, and enterprises.

“Game development is integral to the media and entertainment landscape of India and has a huge economic and employment potential,” he said, adding that the government is seeing this as a sunrise sector and will support the industry.

The domestic gaming industry needs to be supported to ensure that games from the rest of the world do not flood the Indian market.

“India has a huge storytelling history and rich cultural heritage. Gaming is a sunrise industry. India now accounts only two per cent of the global market. India is aiming to increase the share to four per cent,” Jaju said.

The video gaming industry is essentially led by content and creativity and the I&B ministry would work with the newly formed Game Developer Association of India (GDAI) to create high quality talent at scale in India so that India can dominate global gaming space, he said.

Jaju further said that the ministry would soon auction about 237 local private FM radio channels for towns having less than one lakh population. The expression of interest (EOI) has been issued and the auction process is set to be completed by January or early February. The government is keen on small towns getting private FM radio stations since the latter offer many services, including hyper local entertainment.

He also shared that Prasar Bharathi's OTT platform will be launched at the International Film Festival of India, which will begin on November 20 in Goa. It will have nearly 60 channels, which are currently available on DD Free Dish.

He said most of the archival material will also be brought to the viewers through this OTT platform. “It will be a game-changer with the service largely free and also available at a small subscription. Prasar Bharati is in talks with many private television channels,” he said.