MUMBAI: The size of the media and entertainment sector in India is likely to grow to over $100 billion by 2030, Union Secretary for Information and Broadcasting Apurva Chandra said on Tuesday.
Addressing the inaugural session of FICCI Frames Fast Track 2022 here, Chandra said, “India will be a $10 trillion economy in the next 10 years, we should target that the media and entertainment sector should grow to more than $100 billion by 2030. The Ministry of Information and Broadcasting will do whatever it takes to support the M&E sector and help it grow.”
The Secretary announced that ‘Invest India’ is going to be leveraged in order to bring in higher foreign investment into India in the film sector.
“The Ministry has merged various film units under one; NFDC based in Mumbai is going to be the hub of the cinematic arm of the government. With this, we want to revamp the Film Facilitation Office. We are going to hand this over to Invest India, the main investment arm created by the government under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, to attract industry to India. More than $100 billion of FDI is coming to India this year. We want to leverage Invest India to bring in foreign investment, we will reach out to foreign filmmakers to come to India,” he said.
Chandra announced that the Government of India will work with the states and formulate a model theatre policy.
“Over the past 5-6 years, the number of theatres has been on a decline. We need to reverse this trend. We will assign the Film Facilitation Office to work with Invest India to come up with a single-window portal for opening theatres, so that more and more theatres can come up and the public gets more avenues to watch the magic of films in theatres. We will also work with the states to create a Model Theatre Policy so that the states can adopt and work on the same,” he said.
Observing that viewing habits of people have changed due to Covid-19 pandemic, the Secretary noted that when ticket prices were brought down to Rs 75 three days back, all shows were full. “This shows that if price points are right, people can afford theatres. The craving to go to the theatres is there, so we need to work on how we can bring people back to theatres.”
On September 26, Chandra held a meeting with the representatives of the film industry to discuss proposed amendments to the Cinematograph Act. “All stakeholders present supported proposed amendments for the introduction of anti-piracy provisions and age classification with UA category. With the support of the film industry, we hope to table the amended Bill in the winter session of Parliament”, he added. (ANI)