Union Budget 2026: The impact on the content creator economy

From Creato Lab to Artificial Intelligence (AI) in India's services sector, here's an overview of policies discussed in Union Budget 2026!

The Union Budget 2026 was presented yesterday and like every year, the entire country looked forward to how it can benefit from new policies and initiatives. India’s content creation industry, which has been seeing a significant boom off late, saw some significant mention in this year’s Budget. With schemes that will benefit and uplift the economy, these initiatives will help everyone involved. 

One of the major initiatives is the government's support to set up AVGC Content Creator Labs across 15,000 secondary schools and 500 colleges under the aegis of the Indian Institute of Creative Technologies (IICT), a flagship initiative of the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting. The government has allocated a substantial Rs 250 crore for talent development in the AVGC sector. This move is considered to be a big step to help change the way people look at the industry.

Mr Parth Chadha, Co-Founder & CEO, STAN - "Seeing Creator Labs come into schools and colleges is a powerful signal that the country is preparing the next generation for careers in the creative and digital world. What started as a grassroots movement is now part of India’s broader vision for the ‘orange economy.’ At STAN, we’ve believed early in the potential of creators and communities, so this feels like a real moment of validation  and a reminder to keep building with even greater responsibility."

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With a 7 percent increase in the health sector, mental health also had a major mention in the budget, along with affordable cancer and rare disease treatment. FM mentioned setting up NIMHANS-2 in northern India, while National Mental Health institutes in Ranchi and Tezpur will be upgraded as regional apex centres. To strengthen geriatric and allied care, 1.5 lakh caregivers will be trained in the coming year. 

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Another significant mention was the government's efforts to blend with growing technology and make AI part of conversations.

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman announced a new committee to review the impact of new technology like Artificial Intelligence (AI) on India's services sector - "To provide a pathway to fulfilling aspirations of a youthful India with the following measures, I propose to set up a high-powered Education to Employment and Enterprises Standing Committee to recommend measures that focus on the services sector as a core driver of economic growth," she said. Sitharaman, in her speech, said that for the Union Budget 2026, the government has chosen the path of reforms over rhetoric. She added that India will continue to take steps towards becoming a Viksit Bharat. "The committee will prioritise areas to optimise potential for growth in the services space."

The Union Budget 2026 is Sitharaman's ninth consecutive Budget, bringing her closer to former Prime Minister Morarji Desai's record of 10 budgets. Before the Budget was tabled, India's biggest technology firms expected it to push for the development of the AI ecosystem, including innovation and digital infrastructure, across sectors, and provide liquidity in the market for its adoption. The Economic Survey tabled in Parliament on January 29 has recognised Artificial Intelligence (AI) as an economic strategy rather than a prestige technology race. It made a strong case for a bottom-up, multiple sector-specific approach grounded in open and interoperable systems to promote collaboration and shared innovation.

Additionally, the Finance Minister announced an increase of about 9 percent in capital expenditure for the coming financial year, raising the allocation to Rs 12.2 lakh crore in the Union Budget 2026-27.

Dipankar Mukherjee, Co-Founder and CEO of Studio Blo, finds this move to be an effort to meet the fast-growing industry by making it accessible to everyone. “The government is clearly moving in the right direction, and the timing couldn’t be better. India is seeing an unprecedented rise of AI-native animation and content studios -  moving faster than the US or Europe. But AI must be treated for what it really is: a production workflow, not a replacement for creative intelligence." Mukherjee highlighted the visible gap in design maturity, storytelling depth, and world-building quality, while studios are producing content at scale. "Technology alone won’t close that gap. We need a strong pipeline of human talent trained in film language, animation, and narrative craft. Education reform must go beyond infrastructure. Cities like Bhubaneshwar, Nashik, Lucknow, Surat, etc., can become serious talent hubs if pedagogy shifts towards real industry projects, fewer classroom hours, and treating students like professionals. Ethical AI usage also needs to be embedded into India’s digital backbone from day one.”

Here's what the creators had to share:

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What caught your eye in this Budget? Let us know in the comments below.