India’s Union Budget 2026 shows a change in how the country views its creative economy. It moves creative work from informal, passion-driven efforts to a professional global industry. The budget focuses on Animation, Visual Effects, Gaming, and Comics (AVGC). The government plans major investment in education, skills, and infrastructure. Creator labs will be set up in schools and colleges to support young talent. The orange economy is now recognised as an important contributor to GDP. Cloud infrastructure support, skill-based training, and a national talent pipeline will help prepare young people. These steps aim to meet the need for two million creative professionals by 2030 and position India as an AVGC leader.
With the introduction of the budget 2026, the government of India has announced that they will now support the Indian Institute of Creative Technologies in Mumbai to set up AVGC content creator labs in 15,000 secondary schools and 500 colleges.
The main aim of these labs will be to provide students with the high-performance tools which are required for animation and digital storytelling.
The finance minister noted that these labs are designed to democratise access to high-performance computing and professional-grade storytelling tools. “We are seeing a clear shift from people treating creativity as a hobby to building it as a professional industry,” a senior official said, supporting the minister’s vision for the sector.
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The Indian government understands that the creative industry needs skilled people. This is clear from the latest budget, where a large amount of money has been allocated for vocational training in visual effects and gaming. The aim is to help students connect what they learn in school with the skills the industry actually needs.
The finance minister highlighted this need in her budget speech as she said, ‘India’s animation, visual effects, gaming, and comics (AVGC) sector is growing quickly and will need about two million professionals by 2030. She stressed that young people must move from treating creativity as a hobby to seeing it as a serious career.’
With the new budget, the Indian government has accepted the Orange Economy as an important part of India’s GDP. The Orange Economy includes areas like live shows, animation, gaming, and digital content.
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In her speech, the Finance Minister highlighted how many jobs this industry can create. She said that ‘India’s AVGC sector is growing fast, and to keep this growth going, the country needs to train enough people to fill about two million jobs by 2030.’
To counter the operational expenses involved in rendering and creative work, the government launched a historic tax holiday until 2047 for foreign cloud service providers setting up data centres in India.
The finance minister explained the rationale behind this move as she stated that, ‘To support the intensive data needs of our creative industries and encourage global tech leaders to make in India, we are offering a long-term tax certainty. This will ensure our local creators have access to global-standard computing power at competitive costs.’
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The Indian government aims to become the world hub for the AVGC industry by the end of the year 2030. The budget provides a ‘talent pipeline’ that identifies and develops artists from a young age. This ensures that there is a constant supply of talent to fulfil the demand for two million jobs, and the creative economy becomes one of the foundations of the prosperity of the country.