In News: Inaugurating the first India Toy Fair 2021, PM Modi said, “We have to become Atma Nirbhar in the toy sector and also cater to the global market.”
About National Action Plan
- Government has prepared a National Toy Action Plan by involving 15 ministries with a view to make the domestic toy industry competitive.
- Aimed at making India Atma Nirbhar in the toy sector and also increasing the presence of domestic toys in the global market.
- Toyathon-2021 was also organized to promote Indian sports based toys and more than 7000 ideas were brainstormed.
The following action items were outlined in the plan to support the toy ecosystem:
- Setting up toy production clusters across the country
- Launching central government schemes to incentivise manufacturing and exports
- Strengthening the R&D infrastructure for toys and games promoting self-discovery and self-learning
- Integrating toys and games with education, specifically for subjects such as mathematics, history and science
- Increasing awareness among consumers via outreach campaigns to boost purchase of local toys
- Promoting innovation & design and upskilling artisans
- Creating a working group for ‘Ek Bharat Shreshtha Bharat’
- Meeting crowdsourcing procurement needs to boost demand
- Utilising analytics and digital marketing tools for targeted brand promotions
- Organising hackathons and grand challenges to encourage design and innovation
- Building toy repository centres
- Promoting development of digital and online games
- Developing toy laboratories to test and monitor quality & safety standards
- Organising annual toy fairs and exhibitions across production hubs
- Focusing on production of mechanical and electronic toys
- Observing an annual ‘Made in India Toy Day’ in schools
- Strengthening awareness and production of indigenous toys such as puppets, wooden dolls, clay toys and tribal games
- Airing special programmes on toys and games on public broadcast channels such as Doordarshan (DD) and All India Radio (AIR)
- Promoting toys made with recycled and upcycled materials
- Developing an e-commerce platform to provide a centralised direct marketing portal to handicraft artisans
- Building India’s first ‘Toy Museum’
Toy Fair
- The fair will be organised on the virtual platform of the Export Promotion Council for Handicrafts (EPCH).
- The Ministry of Textiles will serve as the nodal body for organising the fair annually.
- This move aligns with the government’s efforts towards making India a self-reliant economy and attracting foreign investments in the sector.
- The fair is likely to showcase 75 stalls by the Department of School Education and Literacy (DoSEL), Indian Institute of Technology Gandhinagar’s (IITGn) Centre for Creative Learning (CCL), Ministry of Education, National Council for Educational Research and Training (NCERT) and State Council for Educational Research and Training (SCERT).
- These institutes will exhibit >200 new designs of toys and models to domestic and international players.
Toycathon
- To promote toy manufacturing among domestic players, particularly rural entrepreneurs, the Common Service Centre (CSV), a special purpose vehicle (SPV) under the Ministry of Electronics and IT, has joined forces with the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) to organise ‘Toycathon 2021’.
- This concept is envisioned as a first-of-its-kind hackathon to develop indigenous toys and games highlighting India’s culture, history and mythology.
- The inter-ministerial initiative is a collaboration of six ministries—Ministry of Education, Ministry of Women and Child Development, Ministry of Commerce and Industry, Ministry of MSME, Ministry of Textiles and Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, along with Common Service Centre (CSV) and the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE).
- It aims to invite students, teachers, start-ups, toy experts and professionals to innovate and submit feasibility assessments for local manufacturing of creative toys, games and concepts
Source: PIB and ibef.org
