India’s growth story is usually told through agriculture, manufacturing and services. That frame is now too narrow. The creative economy, from digital content and design to traditional crafts and performing arts, is adding value that official statistics still struggle to capture.
Saurabh Garg, Secretary, Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation, made that point at the Confederation of Indian Industry Annual Business Summit. India, he said, must “measure what it treasures.” The remark points to a gap in the country’s statistical architecture. Emerging sectors are often undercounted, misclassified or treated as residual activity.
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Services already account for the largest share of GDP. But its internal composition is changing fast. Digital platforms, intellectual property-led businesses and creative enterprises are among its more dynamic parts. Official datasets have not kept pace.
Creative economy needs better measurement
The World Intellectual Property Organisation estimates that India has recorded one of the fastest growth rates in intangible asset formation among major economies, expanding at 6.6% annually. India’s innovation ranking has improved from 81st in 2015 to 38th in 2025. These numbers point to a wider ecosystem of innovation, digital entrepreneurship and creative production.
Yet India’s intellectual property filings remain modest for an economy of its size: around 40,000 patents, 1.7 lakh copyrights, 22 lakh trademarks, 1.4 lakh designs and roughly 700 geographical indications. The gap is not only legal or procedural. It reflects the weak conversion of cultural and creative activity into protected, monetisable economic assets.
India has cultural depth and abundant talent. But much of its creative activity sits inside the informal economy, which includes nearly 8 crore enterprises. Traditional arts, crafts, cultural production and performance depend heavily on this base.
The problem is not participation. It is productivity and value capture. Households engaged in creative activities generate average annual gross value added of about Rs 1 lakh. This is far below the roughly Rs 2 lakh seen in sectors such as Ayurvedic and Unani medicine. Sculptors, painters, jewellery makers and artisans often operate at subsistence incomes, while intermediaries and brands capture a larger share of the final value.
Informal creative workers need formal markets
This gap between participation and productivity is the central policy challenge. The creative economy is inclusive by nature. It supports livelihoods across rural and urban India and absorbs both skilled and traditional labour. But informality keeps creators away from credit, legal protection, intellectual property systems and structured markets.
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The result is familiar. Traditional Indian art and craft can generate strong commercial value for brands, platforms and exporters. The original creators often remain trapped in low incomes, weak bargaining power and limited innovation.
The next challenge is not only to count creators, but to improve their bargaining power. Much of the new creative economy is mediated by platforms, marketplaces, streaming services and aggregators that control discovery, pricing and access to consumers. Traditional artisans face a similar imbalance with exporters, retailers and lifestyle brands.
Formalisation will mean little if it merely registers creators without giving them better contracts, IP literacy, digital skills, market access and fairer revenue shares. India’s creative economy must therefore be treated not only as a statistical category, but as a labour, trade and competition-policy question.
The answer cannot be heavy-handed formalisation. Small creators cannot be pushed into compliance regimes designed for large firms. Formal recognition must first improve visibility, access to finance, market linkages and IP protection.
The government’s proposed Index of Services Production is therefore important. It can help capture the dynamism of emerging service segments, including creative industries. The 2025 update to the National Industrial Classification has also widened the sector’s definitional boundaries to include activities such as influencers, video gaming and blockchain-based enterprises.
The Union Budget for 2026-27 signalled support for what is increasingly called the orange economy. Proposals such as the Indian Institute of Creative Technologies and an expert group on the knowledge economy point in the same direction.
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Orange economy policy must avoid overreach
There is now wider recognition that economic value is no longer confined to physical production. Software, research, artistic works, entertainment content and design can all become engines of wealth creation. But the policy task is difficult.
Measurement itself is a constraint. Traditional sectors can often be counted through units of output, employment, factories or trade flows. Creative industries produce intangible value that is harder to standardise. A digital influencer, freelance designer, folk performer and craft cluster do not fit easily into the same accounting framework.
The proposed Index of Services Production will have to deal with these complications. It must produce data that is reliable without flattening the diversity of creative work. Policymakers will also have to ensure that formalisation does not become another compliance burden for small creators.
India also needs stronger IP protection. Without it, creators cannot derive durable economic value from their work. But IP systems must be usable by artisans, small studios, designers, performers and independent digital creators, not just large firms.
The case for measuring and formalising India’s creative economy is strong. New engines of growth will be needed to complement agriculture, manufacturing and conventional services. The creative economy can be one of them. But the first task is not to celebrate it. It is to count it properly, protect its creators and help them capture a fairer share of the value they produce.