Govt mulling to broaden PLI scheme to attract gaming device makers: MeitY official

The government is looking to widen the production-linked incentive scheme and provide other possible incentives to attract gaming device manufacturers, a senior IT and electronics ministry official said Tuesday.

Ministry of Electronics and IT joint secretary Saurabh Gaur, in an online IAMAI roundtable discussion, said steps are also being taken with the support of the information and broadcasting ministry and culture ministry to promote the gaming ecosystem in the country.

"Gaming consoles are very popular elsewhere. Tablets and laptops are other sources. We will see the emergence of gaming consoles. We would want to promote manufacturing of these consoles in India also through incentives schemes and also through certain other specific measures – especially tariff or non-tariff," he said.

According to an IAMAI-Redseer report released at the virtual meeting, mobile gaming dominates the Indian gaming sector, contributing more than 90 percent to the $1.6 billion gaming market at present, and is expected to further grow to generate $3.9 billion value by 2025.

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Venture capitalists and private equity investors have recognised the Indian gaming market and have invested $1 billion in the last six months.

The report through various data sources estimates that there are around 400 million gamers in India of which 230 million are estimated to be hardcore gamers.

Gaur said gaming device manufacturing fits well within the electronics manufacturing ecosystem and India can meet the global needs with the complete ecosystem developing in the country.

"Lot of gaming is going to be immersive in nature. AR/VR content is going to increase. A lot of innovation is happening in that system. We are keen to promote them under various schemes such as PLI. We are coming up with a broader scheme to support them with incentives," Gaur said.

The Ministry of Electronics and IT was the first to come up with a production linked incentive (PLI) scheme for mobile phone manufacturing that saw Apple's vendor Foxconn and Wistron, Samsung, Lava, etc ramping up their production.

Gaur said Indian gaming companies have grown in size and volumes.

"We would like to see games getting developed for the Indian audience, something that promotes our culture," he said.

Telangana Principal Secretary for IT Jayesh Ranjan said that recreation will continue to drive gaming, but educational and learning content will be of more value and it can increase social acceptance of gaming.