India's creative economy reduced to Rs 30,440 crores GDP in 2020-21: Taking the Temperature report

India’s creative economy reduced to Rs 30,440 crores GDP in 2021 from Rs 50,000 crores GDP in 2020, pre-Covid, as per the ‘Taking the Temperature’ report, jointly released by The British Council, FICCI and Art X Company.

Barbara Wickham OBE, Director India, British Council released the report with Rashmi Dhanwani, Founder-Director, The Art X Company and Sanjoy Roy Co-chair, Creative and Cultural Industries, FICCI.

The report offers a quantitative mapping of India’s creative economy and culture sector – in the organised and unorganised sectors – across literature, crafts, festivals, performing arts and other art forms.

The final edition is a series of three reports and a culmination of 18 months of mapping the sector. The research tracks the longitudinal impact of the pandemic on India’s creative and culture industry and identifies a way ahead in a systematic and sustainable roadmap for recovery. The pioneering research outlines the monetary size and scale of the creative economy and the contribution of the cultural industries to the national GDP and wealth creation in India.

British Council works with the Indian stakeholders to strengthen India’s creative economy and create sustained livelihoods for Indian creative professionals. The report, in collaboration with FICCI and The Art X Company, underlines the British Council’s aim to gather credible information and insights that can enable businesses and governments to make effective and well-informed decisions about public and private investment in the creative sector.

Some of the other key findings of the report are:

• India’s creative economy reduced to Rs 30,440 crores GDP in 2021 from Rs 50,000 crores GDP in 2020, pre-Covid.
• There was 39% recession in creative industries to Rs 30,440 crores in 2021.
• 50% of creative sectors reported 51% or more loss in annual revenue in FY 2020-2021.
• 89% of creative sectors in TTT2 and 82% in TTT 3 have confirmed the pandemic impacted their income.
• 49% of creative sectors have not been able to keep creative businesses and artistic programmes running in FY 2020-2021.
• 94% of arts sectors are now operating in ‘digital only’ or ‘hybrid’ models.
• 27% of the sector is generating income through digital platforms with only 8% running physical programmes.

In view of the findings and the feedback from the creative industry workforce and stakeholders, the report makes the following recommendations:

• Establish a cross-government creative economy Task Force from the 14 Ministries that have a mandate for arts and culture in India.
• Government emergency grant-in-aid for MSMEs.
• A comprehensive national skills campaign across urban and rural geographies for creative MSMEs in digital and technological skills, business development, marketing and communication capacity.
• Establish sector-specific management, self-help groups and management organisations and city-wide enterprise zones and clusters.
• Establish arms-length bodies (ALBs) to strengthen and invest in arts and culture through a partnership of public and private investors.
• Embed tax coding of the creative industries in the formal economy through the Goods and Services Tax (GST) Council.

Jonathan Kennedy, Director Arts India, British Council, said, "Since the onset of Covid-19, we’ve dedicated our research to understand the impact of the pandemic on India’s creative and cultural economy with FICCI, Art X Company and Smart Cube. The final report makes practical recommendations for the short and long-term recovery of creative sectors and livelihoods. While our first two reports measured the impact of the pandemic on the incomes of the professionals and culture organisations, the third edition offers a definitive mapping of the scale and significance of the creative economy in India.”

“We hope recommendations for recovery of the creative economy will be implemented through governance, infrastructure development and India’s enduring self-reliance,” he added.

Rashmi Dhanwani, Founder-Director, The Art X Company, said, “This final leg of the Taking the Temperature survey underscores the hard journey that the cultural sector in India has been on. Not only has the sector lost more than 50% of its income, but its performance has also affected India's GDP growth. Besides the economic impact, the loss of lives and livelihoods that the pandemic has caused begs an urgent intervention - India's culture sector needs a voice and demands urgent regulatory frameworks to safeguard this vital part of India's identity.”

Sanjoy Roy Co-chair, Creative and Cultural Industries, FICCI, said, “The TTT report on the Creative sector underlies the vital nature and impact of this sector and its potential in creating jobs, contributing to local economies and creating a platform to realise one full potential.”