Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday interacted with the participants of Toycathon 2021 and said the orchestration of the first Toycathon strengthened the age-old Indian belief that where there is courage, there is prosperity.
"There is an age-old belief in India that where there is courage, there is prosperity. The orchestration of the first Toycathon in these challenging times strengthens this feeling," PM Modi said.
"The fact that more than 1,500 teams have made it to Toycathon's grand finale in the first time only points towards a bright future," he added.
He further said that there is a need to discuss about toys and games seriously as they affect the country's economy, and also the mental health and creativity of the people.
"The global toy market is worth about $100 billion. India's share in this is only around one and a half-billion dollars," PM Modi added.
Stressing the need to change the situation, the PM said that today India imports around 80 per cent of its toys which means that crores of rupees of the country are going out.
Toycathon 2021 was jointly launched by the Ministry of Education, Ministry of Women and Child Development, MSME Ministry, Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT), Textile Ministry, Information and Broadcasting Ministry and All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) on January 5, 2021, to crowd-source innovative toys and games ideas.
Around 1.2 lakh participants from across India registered and submitted more than 17000 ideas for the Toycathon 2021, out of which 1567 ideas have been shortlisted for the three days online Toycathon Grand Finale, being held from June 22 to June 24. Due to COVID-19 restrictions, this Grand Finale will have teams with digital toy ideas, while a separate physical event will be organized for non-digital toy concepts.
"India's domestic market, as well as the global toy market, offers a huge opportunity to our manufacturing sector. Toycathon-2021 is aimed at boosting the Toy Industry in India to help it capture a wider share of the toy market," said the Centre in an official statement.
( With inputs from ANI )
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