Interacting with participants of Toycathon-2021 via video-conferencing on Thursday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi called on people to be "vocal for local toys", saying that about 80 percent of the toys were being imported by India with crores of rupees going abroad and asserted that it was very important to change this situation. Modi said India's share is only about 1.5 billion dollars in the global toy market of approximately 100 billion dollars.

Emphasizing the importance of toys, he said if the child's first school is his or her family, then the first book and the first friends are toys.  "Our focus should be on developing toys, games that present every aspect of Indianness in interesting, interactive ways," Modi said.

Toycathon-2021 was jointly launched by the Ministry of Education, WCD Ministry, MSME Ministry, DPIIT, Textile Ministry, I&B Ministry and AICTE on January 5, 2021 to crowd-source innovative toys and games ideas, the PMO noted.

Around 1.2 lakh participants from across India registered and submitted more than 17,000 ideas for the Toycathon 2021, out of which 1,567 ideas have been shortlisted for the three-day online Toycathon Grand Finale, being held from June 22 to June 24.

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