Animation centre likely to come up on FTII extension land

Express News Service: Sat Nov 20 2010,

Pune : The Ministry of Information and Broadcasting (MoIB) is in the process of setting up National Centre for Excellence for Animation, Gaming and VFX (NCoE). The centre to be run on a PPP basis is likely to come up on FTII premises.

While Minister of Information and Broadcasting Ambika Soni announced the project a few months ago, details have come to light through RTI documents obtained by staff members of FTII, a copy of which is with The Indian Express. The documents stated that the MoIB had mandated Pricewaterhouse Coopers Pvt Ltd (PwC) to prepare an executable Detailed Project Report (DPR) on the Gaming project on a public-partnership basis last year. In February this year a “Kickoff meeting for the project” was held at Shastri Bhavan in New Delhi attended by MoIB joint secretary, director and PwC representatives.

On June 21, another meeting for finalisation of the DPR took place where it was discussed that a minimum of 5-10 acres of land would be required for the NCoE. The meeting was attended by Raghu Menon, secretary MoIB, Uday Verma, Special secretary, D P Reddy Joint Secretary and Amitabh Kumar Director (Films) along with PwC members. As mandated by MoIB, the PwC also put together a list of an advisory panel for MoIB that included private players in the field of Gaming and Animation.

Mala Rangarajan, under secretary, MoIB Films Wing confirmed that the final DPR prepared by PwC has been submitted to the Ministry and they are for a presentation before the minister that should happen any day. Sonal Shukla Tewari of PwC involved in the preparation said they had submitted the report a month and a half ago and are awaiting a date with the minster for the presentation. Pankaj Rag, director FTII said he had attended few meetings but the project was entirely in the hands of the MoIB.