Budget 2026-27 has been significant for several reasons, and the most important of all is its focus on the orange economy. Quite rarely, the government budget focuses on the creative sector. In fact, we can even claim that it is the first union budget to explicitly recognise the creator ecosystem as part of the formal economy. And that means the creator or the orange economy is contributing significantly to the nation’s growth. According to an Indian press release, the annual output of this sector is INR 3 lakh crore, contributing nearly one per cent to the GDP. This includes media and entertainment, visual effects, gaming, animation, digital media etc.
And the numbers get even more interesting when we see how much it has grown from 2023, when it was worth INR 19 billion, and the same is projected to be INR 34 billion by the end of 2026. All of this means that the industry is growing rapidly and creating jobs for millions instantaneously. While looking back where it all started, the industry has come a long way and is soon achieving what the film industry couldn’t.
Thought Habitat spoke with Indrajit Lahiri, a veteran creator who is sharing his journey and how India is embracing the orange economy.
Where it all started?
Between 2008 and 2010, the policy discussions on the orange economy began when think tanks gathered around and began discussing to include the orange economy as part of the formal economy. However, the push came with the Digital India campaign in 2015, when digital content creation, online media, and other mediums. All of this is attributable to the rapid growth of smartphones and cheap internet access.
Indrajit Lahiri, Founder, Foodka and a culture storyteller, recollects, “When I started blogging almost 14 years ago, nobody called themselves a creator. We were simply people obsessed with writing, photography, food, travel, or whatever subject genuinely fascinated us. There was no creator economy, no structured monetization, and certainly no roadmap for making a career out of it.“
The First Structured Roadmap
Animation, Visual Effects, Gaming and Comics (AVGC) promotion task force was set up around 2022, which recommended setting up dedicated institutes, industry-led skilling programmes, and positioning India as a creative-content hub. And the budget announcements regarding the orange economy are a direct reflection of the government recognising the economic potential of the industry.
Why focus on skilling?
Indrajit says, “Today, everyone wants to become a creator before they have created anything. The ecosystem has become bigger, richer, and significantly more accessible because the barrier to entry is now almost zero. Unfortunately, the barrier to credibility has also become very low. Earlier, people spent years building audiences and communities; today someone can become famous within a week. But fame and influence are not the same thing. We now have more creators than ever before. Whether we have more valuable creators is a different question altogether.”
Is India fully embracing?
“I do not think India has fully embraced it yet. India celebrates successful creators, but that does not always mean it respects creative work itself. People celebrate creators after success arrives, but often question the career choice before that happens. Most creators spend years hearing questions like, “When will you get a real job?” Ironically, many of those same people later become curious about earnings and business models. We are definitely improving, but we still tend to respect outcomes more than creativity itself. India is embracing the economics of creativity faster than it is embracing the culture around creativity,” claims Indrajit.
The story doesn’t end here. Wait for the next iteration of State of the Orange Economy in India with inputs from more creators and Indrajit too.
