Animation industry hit by lack of Govt. support

Bangalore: "Government does not support animation industry. We are trying to sustain ourselves. We have the technology but 90 percent of the software have to be imported from abroad and government does not even reduce tax," says Anand Kannan, Business Head, Sanraa Media, Bangalore. Many countries in the west are outsourcing their work to India because India has the required talent as well as infrastructure. But the same animation industry struggles when it comes to creating animated movie or television series on its own.

Government can support animation in many ways. "In countries like U.S and China, Government insists that channels show local animation. This automatically creates a market for local animation industry." says Pankaj Khandpur, Creative Director of Tata Elxsi. If this rule is passed in India then animation industry will receive a big boost and many new animated television series will be created.

To make an animated movie requires huge funds. Lack of funds is the biggest problem says Divas Sadasivan, Corporate Communication Manager of Toonz Animation. "Lot of funds are required to create your own Animated Movie or Television series. Most of the foreign companies get funds from banks but that doesn't happen in India. In India, banks don't support us."

Fund is not the only problem faced by animation industry. "We lack original ideas. People are scared to try something new," says M P Hariharan, Managing Director of Thinxworks. Pankaj Khandpur shares the same view. He says "I don't believe that we have the experience to write for animation. We have animators and the required technology but not good script writers. Script in animation is more important than script in normal movie."

NASSCOM has taken notice of the problems faced by animation industry and had launched Nasscom Animation and Gaming India in 2008. Nasscom does plan in introducing tax breaks and reducing the import duty on software products but nothing has been done as of yet.