Union Minister of Textiles and Women and Child Development, Smriti Irani has urged the research bodies working under the aegis of Ministry of Education to look into the prospects of sustainable toys.
Ministry of Textiles (MoT) is also planning to conduct regional physical toy fair at 12 places.
Inaugurating Toycathon 2021 Grand Finale, she marked the moment as historical where the nation’s first toy hackathon is being dedicated to the world.
The Minister complimented the individual teams that submitted the ideas at Toycathon 2021. She hoped that many more ideas from this Toycathon 2021 Grand Finale will be commercialised.
It is pertinent to mention here that around 85 per cent toys that Indian children are playing with are imported and are predominantly made of plastic.
To promote manufacturing of indigenous toys in India with creative ideas, Toycathon 2021 was jointly launched by the Ministry of Education, WCD Ministry, MSME Ministry, DPIIT, Textile Ministry, I&B Ministry and AICTE on 5 January 2021 to crowd-source innovative toys and games ideas.
Around 1.2 lakh participants from across India registered and submitted more than 17,000 ideas for the Toycathon 2021, out of which 1,567 ideas have been shortlisted for the three-day online Toycathon Grand Finale, being held from 22 to 24 June.
Indian toy market stands at around US $ 1.5 billion withe the global toy market currently estimated to be more than US $ 100 billion.
Upendra Prasad Singh, Secretary, Ministry of Textiles said that there is huge potential in toy industry and Toycathon is also an integral part of the Toy Fair 2021.
