Rajeev Chandrasekhar, the Minister of State (MoS), Ministry for Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY), recently revealed that they hope to complete the process of seeking opinions from all stakeholders soon on the draft rules for online gaming which were released by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) earlier this week.

Chandrasekhar stated that consultation meetings between the industry officials, gamers, gaming companies including both startups and larger companies, investors and think tanks will take place starting next week.

Speaking on the topic, Chandrasekhar also claimed that female gamers comprise about 40%-45% of all online gamers in India. He then said that there was still a considerable amount of work to be done for female gamers.

According to a video posted on his Twitter account, Chandrasekhar expects the rules to be notified by early February as the government aims to expand the online gaming ecosystem while protecting gamers’ rights.

The appointment of MeitY as a nodal ministry and the release of the draft rules by it is a huge step towards regulating the online gaming sector. With the proposed amendments, the government plans to provide a backbone to the online gaming sector.

The Indian government recently recognized esports as part of multi-sports events under the Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports. Following that, the MeitY released a proposed set of rules that will be applicable across the nation and if passed, will prevent different states from having different rules for online gaming.

Draft rules are currently open for public consultation and people are encouraged to provide their inputs and to ensure there are no loopholes that can be exploited. Details of when, where and how consultations with stakeholders will be done are not known yet.