PM Modi inaugurates India’s first toy fair, pushes for use of less plastic

Speaking at The India Toy Fair 2021. Watch. https://t.co/2mlOE6eQir

— Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) February 27, 2021

“Our toys reflect reuse and recycling that has been a part of the Indian lifestyle. Most Indian toys are built out of natural and eco-friendly materials. The colours used in them are natural and safe.”

“I would like to appeal to the toy manufacturers of the country to build such toys that are better both for ecology and psychology. Can we make an effort to make minimal use of plastic in toys and use such material that can be recycled?” PM Modi added.

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During the virtual event, Modi interacted with several toy clusters from across the country. While speaking to Karnataka’s toy cluster Channapatna, which has been manufacturing toys for 200 years, Modi urged them to come up with innovative ideas to build toys for India’s toy industry to grow.

The Toy fair, Modi said, will bring together stakeholders in the sector, which will add to the effort of the industry to grow. “At 11 AM tomorrow, 27th February, will inaugurate The India Toy Fair 2021. This Fair will bring together various stakeholders associated with the sector. Through such efforts, we aim to add momentum to the efforts of toy industry to grow further,” he had tweeted.

Aimed at providing a platform to states to develop toys reflecting the history, culture and social milieu specific to the states and also to revive traditional and indigenous toys in the lives of children, the national toy fair claims to also boost the economy by supporting local toy industry under ‘Atamnirbhar Bharat’.

The toy fair is divided into five stages — pre-school to Class II, primary, upper primary, secondary and senior secondary.

A hydralulic JCB controlled using syringes, a periscope to look beyond the wall, a robot made using a DC motor, explaining textbook trignometry through a sine wave car, easy learning of geometry through lamps — these are a few of the over 200 toys developed at the Indian Institute of Technology, Gandhinagar’s (IIT-Gn) Centre for Creative Learning (CCL), are a part of the toy fair which will be held till March 2.

The Ministry of Textiles, in collaboration with other ministries, including the Ministry of Education, has organised the virtual event with an aim to provide joyful learning to children by including them in teaching and learning as well as promoting the indigenous toy industry.

“The idea of a toy fair emerged from Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Mann Ki Baat address on August 30, 2020, where he highlighted the huge potential of toys market and the opportunities that can be tapped to promote indigenous toys. In this fair, along with CCL’s toys, there will be 75 exhibition stalls of the Department of School Education and Literacy (DoSEL), Ministry of Education, National Council for Educational Research and Training (NCERT), State Council for Educational Research and Training (SCERT), along with their schools and teachers,” CCL co-ordinator Prof Manish Jain had said.