India’s online gaming industry faces challenges

Zeal with which indirect tax authorities are serving notices to legitimate operators is unfounded.

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Is someone seriously Ensim about the online gaming industry? Not exactly. The Union Budget continued its focus on steering the economy towards growth where the ease of doing business in India was a critical component of the proposal. India’s Amrit Kaal vision pegs the FDI growth to a whopping 1 trillion by 2047.

While there have been over 300 reforms introduced across 72 action points for state governments to develop investor friendly ecosystems introduced under Business Reform Action Plan BRAP), there are certain contradictions that continue to baffle businesses and the investors. A great example is the online gaming industry. At one end of the spectrum, MeitY has been appointed as the nodal ministry which almost at lightning speed came out with the draft rules for the sector, held stakeholder consultations and is expected to share the final rules soon. To add to this, the recent list of banned apps includes gambling and offshore operators, which is again a positive step towards putting brakes on the rapidly growing illegitimate gambling industry.