What is India’s Orange Economy that Budget 2026 Puts the Spotlight on?

India’s Union Budget 2026 places the spotlight on the ‘orange economy’, covering creative sectors such as animation, gaming, design and live entertainment. Backed by the Economic Survey 2025-26, the government aims to boost jobs, skills, urban services and tourism through targeted policy support. 

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman’s Union Budget for 2026-27 placed India’s creative industries firmly at the centre of the government’s services-led growth strategy, marking one of the most explicit policy endorsements yet of what is increasingly referred to as the “Orange Economy”.

Anchored in the analytical framework of the Economic Survey 2025-26, the Budget outlined how creativity-driven sectors — ranging from animation and gaming to live entertainment, design and intellectual property — can evolve into large-scale sources of employment, and tourism-led growth.

Rather than being viewed primarily as soft power or discretionary consumption, these sectors are now being positioned as labour-intensive, high-multiplier industries capable of absorbing young workers, supporting startups, and strengthening city economies.