-By Swapnil Mukherjee
India has taken another small step in the gaming and esports sector with the government of Uttar Pradesh signing a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Garena, a game development and publishing company headquartered in Singapore. The deal was finalised on July 29.
The cooperation is concentrating on fostering the growth of esports in Uttar Pradesh, with the state government taking the initiative to organise transnational esports events. To support the project, Yotta, a part of Hiranandani Group, has joined the cooperation. Yotta will provide data centre and hosting services.
The government of Uttar Pradesh in partnership with Garena and Yotta wants to develop esports and host international tournaments. Back in March, the state government had planned a major push for esports as part of its new sports policy. They had set a target of creating an ecosystem to promote esports across the state and India.
Some of the ideas were creating a skill development model by studying the public and transnational esports ecosystem, setting up an esports centre in Uttar Pradesh with the help of private sector associations, offering players the facilities given to athletes in other sports, establishing an incitement and price structure for esports athletes and hosting public and transnational events in Uttar Pradesh.
Garena will concentrate on hosting transnational events in Uttar Pradesh. Yotta will give the support needed by Garena to fulfil this vision. In all, two MoUs were inked at the KD Singh Babu Stadium in Lucknow. The first was between the UP government and Garena, while the second was between Garena and Yotta. All this took place in the presence of sports minister Girish Chandra Yadav, chief secretary of sports Navneet Sehgal, Sunil Gupta, the CEO and co-founder of Yotta, and Gang Ye, the CEO and co-founder of Sea Ltd.