Apurva Chandra, Secretary, Ministry of Information and Broadcasting (MIB) yesterday visited the proposed National Centre of Excellence in Animation, VFX, Gaming and Comics project in Mumbai and held consultations with various stakeholders.

Chandra, himself a Maharashtra cadre civil servant, visited the proposed site of the excellence center near Mumbai’s famous Film City.

The State Government of Maharashtra has made available the 20-acre land for the center. MIB is developing the center in collaboration with Indian Institute of Technology-Bombay and Chandra held detailed discussions with Director of IIT-Bombay, Prof. Subhasis Chaudhary.

The Secretary also visited the Whistling Woods International Film Institute, located in the Film City Complex, and met veteran Hindi filmmaker Subhash Ghai and his colleagues.

The Indian animation visual effects (commonly abbreviated as VFX) and gaming industries have grown and evolved over the last two decades. With more filmmakers and TV producers going in for technology-driven products, such as VFX and animation in a big way, there is a growing demand for skilled professionals in the sector. One of the targets of the proposed animation center is to address the issue of pros.

Indian companies in the gaming industry have also evolved from being outsourcing companies for western gaming studios to being pioneers in designing and developing games.

The excellence center has been envisioned to address the skill requirement by imparting quality education and short programmes in the field.   It aims at creating a world-class talent pool in India to cater to the domestic as well as global entertainment industry.

Meanwhile, Chandra also visited various private production facilities in Mumbai, including Firescore Interactive, which is a hyper-casual game development studio, and interacted with studio officials and technicians to understand the technological advancement in the VFX industry.

 Later, he held detailed interactions with the leaders of the film and entertainment industry at the Yash Raj Studios campus to understand their perspective and issues facing them.