While presenting her 9th budget in Parliament, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman made several important announcements to strengthen India’s emerging creator and design economy. During the budget speech, he said that in collaboration with the Indian Institute of Creative Technologies (IICT), Mumbai, AVGC i.e. Content Creator Labs related to animation, visual effects, gaming and comics will be opened across the country.
The government proposes that these labs will be set up in 15,000 secondary schools and 500 colleges, so that students can get practical experience of digital content creation and creative technologies from an early age.
support of big tech companies
In May last year, IICT had added big companies like Google, YouTube, Meta, Adobe, Microsoft, NVIDIA, Wacom and JioStar as industry partners. These companies will provide curriculum development, internships and scholarships as well as mentorship and incubation support to creative tech startups.
Also read: Many big announcements in the budget for IT sector, foreign cloud companies will not be taxed till 2047
Focus on startups and design education
IICT also launched the WaveX Media-Tech Startup Incubator program in August 2025, the first batch of which was 15 startups. These startups were given infrastructure, mentorship and access to global partners.
Apart from this, the budget also proposes to set up a new National Institute of Design (NID) in Eastern India to promote design education. The Finance Minister said that the design industry is growing rapidly, but there is a shortage of trained designers in the country.
University township and hostel for girls
The government also announced that states will be assisted in developing 5 university townships near major industrial and logistics corridors. These townships will have universities, colleges, research institutes, skill centers and residential facilities. To promote women’s education, it has been proposed to build a girls hostel in every district, so that the dropout rate of girl students in higher education can be reduced.
Also read: Big relief announced for the battery industry in the budget, customs duty waived on raw materials of lithium-ion cells.
Science also got a boost
Budget 2026 also proposes to establish or upgrade four major telescope infrastructure facilities to promote astrophysics and astronomy. These include the National Large Solar Telescope, National Large Optical Infrared Telescope, Himalayan Chandra Telescope and COSMOS 2 Planetarium.
