• Chetan Deshmukh was the animation and special effects expert for Hollywood films Chicago and Shanghai Knights. He recently shifted base from the US to Pune to start the firm Tool Box.

• Jesh Krishnamurthy worked with some leading companies in animation and gaming in the US, Canada, Germany and the UK for 13 years before he decided to start his own studio, Anibrain. He did so four months ago after shifting base to Pune. He is now working on some Hollywood films from here.

• Girish Dhakephalkar works with Realtime Worlds, a gaming company based in Scotland. He is interested in making games for the Indian market with Indian content and after studying the market in India, he finds Pune the ideal place to work.

Theirs are not isolated stories as Pune fast emerges as a hub for the animation and gaming industry. In less than one year, about 30 companies and studios dealing in special effects and animation have sprung up in the city, along with a string of training academies.

The arithmetic is simple: while it costs around $400,000 to make a 30-minute animated film in the US, in Pune it can be made for one-seventh the amount.

“What the IT industry achieved in 11 years in Pune — a business of $5 billion per year — the animation and gaming industry is expected to achieve in six,” says a study by the Maharashtra Chamber of Commerce, Industry and Agriculture (MACCIA). It has already started talking to some real estate developers to start Special Economic Zones for the industry.

... contd.