New Delhi, Feb 1 : Recognising the immense potential of the Animation, Visual Effects, Gaming and Comic (AVGC) sector, Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said Today  that an AVGC promotion task force will be set up with all stakeholders to build domestic capacity by employing youth and serve the domestic and global market. “The animation, visual effects, gaming, and comic (AVGC) sector offers immense potential to employ youth. An AVGC promotion task force with all stakeholders will be set-up to recommend ways to realize this and build domestic capacity for serving our markets and the global demand,” she said. The Indian animation and VFX industry is expected to expand to US $2.3 billion by FY24 from US $1.2 billion in FY19. As per the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII)-The Boston Consulting Group (BCG), India has less than 10% of the global market share in VFX and animation. In 2020, the Ministry had announced it will establish an AVGC Centre of Excellence (CoE). Following this promise, the first AVGC CoE was launched in Bengaluru. In July last year, Minister of Information and Broadcasting Anurag Thakur told the Rajya Sabha that the Union Government has decided to set up a National Centre of Excellence for Animation, Visual Effects, Gaming and Comics for creating a world-class talent pool in India to cater to the Indian as well as global industry. It will be set up in collaboration with Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay. He said, in order to support skilled manpower in the animation and VFX sector, Satyajit Ray Film and Television Institute and Film and Television Institute of India will run courses on Animation and VFX. The Minister also said that Media and Entertainment sector is one of the largest growing sectors in the country. Karnataka currently has 71 AVGC studios that develop hundreds of games and apps that are available on various app stores. In fact, one of India’s unicorns, gaming firm MPL that joined the bandwagon with a valuation of $2.3 billion, is based out of Bengaluru. The State also is home to some of the bigger gaming studios. (UNI)