India’s Creative Economy: From Culture to Economic Power

How films, music, games, animation, crafts and digital creators are turning India's cultural depth into jobs, exports and global influence

For a long time, culture and economics were discussed in separate rooms. Culture was about heritage, identity and values; economics was about factories, farms and finance. The idea of the creative economy, often called the orange economy, brings them together. It treats ideas, stories, design, performance and intellectual property as sources of economic value in their own right. India, with its film industry, musical traditions, crafts, festivals, regional languages and a fast-growing base of digital creators, has all the raw material. The question is whether policy, skills, finance and intellectual property protection can turn that material into lasting economic power. This article looks at where the sector stands, what the government is doing, and what still needs fixing, in a form useful for UPSC and APSC preparation.

1. What Is the Creative or Orange Economy?

The orange economy covers activities where value comes mainly from creativity, cultural assets and intellectual property rather than physical goods. The term is associated with Ivan Duque Marquez and Felipe Buitrago, who popularised it in a 2013 book. Typical segments include film and television, music, publishing, advertising, design, architecture, performing arts, crafts, gaming, animation, visual effects and the newer creator economy built on social media and streaming platforms. One reported estimate puts the global creative economy at over 2 trillion US dollars a year, supporting nearly 50 million jobs.

Three features make it strategically attractive. It is labour-intensive and employs many young people and women. It relies on talent and ideas rather than heavy capital. And it earns foreign exchange while also building soft power, because a film, a song or a game carries a country's culture abroad in a way few other exports do.

2. How Big Is It? The Numbers

The most widely used benchmark is the annual FICCI-EY report on India's media and entertainment sector, which is only a part of the broader creative economy but its best-documented part. The March 2026 edition reported the following for 2025:

Segment	2025 trend reported
Total media and entertainment	About Rs 2.78 trillion, up 9 percent
Digital media	Largest segment, crossing Rs 1 trillion for the first time
Film	Record revenue of about Rs 205 billion; more than 1,900 films released
Live events	Up 44 percent, driven by concerts, weddings and religious and government events
Digital subscriptions	Up 60 percent; 216 million paid video subscriptions
Video games	Down 17 percent after the ban on real-money gaming from August 2025
Animation and VFX	Up only 2 percent as international studios cut output
Radio	Down 7 percent to about Rs 23 billion

The report projects the sector to reach about Rs 3.3 trillion by 2028, growing at more than 7 percent a year, with new media expected to account for over half of industry revenue by then. A few observations stand out. Growth is shifting decisively from traditional to digital platforms. Experience-based segments such as live events are booming. And not every creative segment benefits equally: gaming was hit by a regulatory change, and animation and VFX, which depend heavily on global outsourcing, remain exposed to decisions taken in foreign studios.

Other estimates, presented at WAVES 2025, put the sector's contribution at Rs 5.14 lakh crore in FY24, rising to Rs 6.88 lakh crore by FY29, with employment growing from about 2.7 million to over 3 million. These figures are not directly comparable with the FICCI-EY revenue numbers because they use different definitions, which is itself a point worth noting: India still lacks one agreed, official definition of the creative economy.

3. The Government's Push

WAVES and the Creative Technology Institute

WAVES, the World Audio Visual and Entertainment Summit, was held in Mumbai in 2025 as a platform to bring together industry, investors, creators and policymakers. It featured CreatoSphere, a creators' competition that drew over one lakh registrations from more than 60 countries, with about 750 finalists showcased. WAVES also saw the announcement of the Indian Institute of Creative Technology (IICT) in Mumbai, designed on the lines of the IITs and IIMs for animation, visual effects, gaming, comics and extended reality (AVGC-XR). In 2026, the government told Parliament that IICT has been approved as a national centre of excellence working through a hub-and-spoke model linking states, industry and academia. An AVGC Promotion Task Force, set up in April 2022, had earlier recommended building such capacity.

Budget 2026-27

The Union Budget for 2026-27 gave the orange economy a visible place. Its main announcements, as reported, were:

• AVGC Content Creator Labs in 15,000 secondary schools and 500 colleges, supported through IICT, aimed at a projected need of nearly 2 million skilled professionals by 2030.
• A reported allocation of Rs 250 crore for AVGC talent development.
• A new National Institute of Design in eastern India, to be set up through a challenge route to address the shortage of professional designers.
• Regulatory facilitation for live entertainment through a single-window approach under the Live Events Development Cell, since organisers often need 10 to 15 separate clearances. GST on live entertainment remained at 18 percent.

Analysts noted that the approach focuses on skills and institutions rather than short-term production subsidies, a supply-side bet that talent is the binding constraint.

Cultural Recognition

India's cities also feature in the UNESCO Creative Cities Network, which recognises cities that use creativity for sustainable development. Cities such as Jaipur (crafts), Varanasi and Chennai (music), Hyderabad (gastronomy), Mumbai (film), Srinagar (crafts), Gwalior (music) and Kozhikode (literature) have been designated over the years, and Lucknow was reported to have been added for gastronomy in 2025. Such recognition supports tourism, craft markets and local pride, linking heritage to livelihoods.

4. Why It Matters: Jobs, Exports and Soft Power

• Employment: The sector offers entry points for young people across cities and small towns, from video editors and animators to musicians, designers and event crews. One analysis cited in reporting says India's live entertainment ecosystem alone supports over 10 million jobs.
• Exports: One source reports that creative exports grew about 20 percent in 2023-24 to more than 11 billion US dollars. EY's report presented at WAVES says India produces over 200,000 hours of original content a year and hosts about 50 global capability centres in media and entertainment, showing growing global integration.
• Soft power: Cinema, music, yoga, cuisine and festivals shape how the world sees India. A strong creative economy amplifies this influence without any coercion.
• Regional and inclusive growth: Crafts, folk arts and regional-language content can generate income in places far from the main industrial centres, including the North East.

5. The Challenges

• No national policy or common definition: Commentators argue that India needs a national creative economy policy covering cinema, digital media, gaming, animation, creator businesses and cultural exports. Without a shared definition, data is scattered and sector-wide planning is hard.
• Piracy and weak intellectual property enforcement: A study presented at WAVES, by IP House and Media Partners Asia with CII support, estimated online video piracy losses at 1.2 billion US dollars in 2024, a figure that could double by 2029. It suggested that effective enforcement could recover about 1.1 billion dollars and create roughly 158,000 jobs. Generative AI adds a new layer of copyright questions.
• Skills and access: High-end creative tools and training are concentrated in a few metros, and designers and technical artists are in short supply.
• Dependence on outsourcing and platforms: Animation and VFX growth has stalled as foreign studios cut output, and creators depend on a few global platforms whose rules can change overnight.
• Regulatory shocks: The 17 percent fall in video games after the real-money gaming ban shows how policy decisions aimed at one problem can hit an entire segment.
• Finance and informality: Many artists, crafts workers and creators work informally, with limited access to credit, insurance and social security.

6. The Way Forward

• Adopt a national creative economy policy with a clear definition and a regular statistical framework, so that progress can be measured.
• Strengthen copyright enforcement, including faster action against piracy and clear rules on AI-generated content.
• Expand skills through IICT, the proposed new NID and regional spokes, and ensure that small towns and the North East are included, not only Mumbai.
• Reduce regulatory friction through single-window clearances, especially for live events and film shooting.
• Improve access to finance, insurance and social protection for freelancers, artists and craft workers.
• Promote Indian content and intellectual property abroad through festivals, co-productions and trade promotion, while protecting traditional knowledge through tools such as geographical indications.

7. Quick Revision for Exams

Topic	Key points
Orange economy	Creative, knowledge and IP-based economy; term popularised by Duque and Buitrago (2013)
FICCI-EY report (2025 data)	Rs 2.78 trillion, up 9 percent; digital media above Rs 1 trillion; Rs 3.3 trillion expected by 2028
WAVES	World Audio Visual and Entertainment Summit, Mumbai 2025; CreatoSphere creator challenge
IICT	Mumbai institute for AVGC-XR, modelled on IITs and IIMs; national centre of excellence
AVGC-XR	Animation, visual effects, gaming, comics and extended reality
Budget 2026-27	Content creator labs in 15,000 schools and 500 colleges; new NID in eastern India
UNESCO Creative Cities	Seven fields: crafts and folk art, design, film, gastronomy, literature, media arts, music
Main challenges	Piracy, no national policy, skill gaps, platform and outsourcing dependence, informality

Possible mains questions:

• What is the orange economy? Discuss its potential for employment generation and export earnings in India.
• Examine how cultural industries contribute to India's soft power and economic growth.
• Critically analyse the challenges facing India's creative industries and suggest policy measures.
• How can the creative economy promote inclusive and regional development, with reference to the North East?

8. Final Thoughts

India does not lack creative talent; it has centuries of storytelling, music, craft and performance behind it, and a young, connected population producing new content every day. What converts that potential into economic power is the unglamorous machinery around it: clear definitions and data, strong intellectual property protection, accessible training, predictable regulation and fair finance for creators. The recent push through WAVES, IICT and the Budget is a meaningful start, but its test will be whether the benefits reach beyond a few metros and whether creators, not only platforms and studios, capture the value. For aspirants, a strong answer on this topic links culture to economy, backs claims with figures, and balances the opportunity with honest attention to the gaps.

Sources

• EY India, FICCI-EY report on the media and entertainment sector (March 2026)
• India Briefing, India's orange economy and creative industries outlook after Budget 2026
• NEXT IAS, Budget 2026 and the orange economy
• Storyboard18, AVGC task force and IICT as national centre of excellence
• Storyboard18, WAVES 2025 reports on the media and entertainment sector
• Deccan Herald, India needs a creative economy policy
• Civilsdaily, Gwalior and Kozhikode join the UNESCO Creative Cities Network

Information as of 22 October 2026, compiled from the sources listed above. Estimates differ across reports because definitions vary, and policy details may change, so verify the latest figures from official sources before using them in an examination answer.