If a recent media intereaction is to be believed, then India would soon have its own platform similar to Youtube. The short interview was shown in the Dainik Jagran channel where the interviewer was asking about such plans from Gaurav Dwivedi, the CEO of Prasar Bharti

The interviewee opined that the idea to set up India’s own video sharing platform like Youtube has nothing to do with politics and trade war with other countries but rather a step in the Make In India’s vision.

Reporter: Meanwhile, a news reached me from somewhere.

Reporter: What has reached is that India is of India — the government and Prasar Bharati are preparing something parallel to YouTube. What is that about — bringing a platform like YouTube or any other video sharing platform?

Prasar Bharati CEO: There is no such relation with any international issue. But it is certainly true that the Hon’ble Prime Minister has said that we need to build platforms for our own country.

– Conversation between Dainik Jagran Reporter and Prasar Bharati CEO recently

Nearly 590 million Youtube Viewers in India Alone with more than 100 million channels

India is an extremely big market for Youtube and if India decides to set up its own video sharing platform, it will cause a severe dent in Youtube’s revenue. The main reason which appears to be behind such vision of government appears to be the tariff war which Trump started few months ago. The tariff imposed by Trump has dented many livelihoods in India.

If India opts its own in-house video sharing platform like China has done with Youku and Bilibili, then it would also have more control over content policies, data storage, and monetisation flows — reducing dependency on foreign tech giants like Google. Creators may also receive more cut than from their current Youtube partner program. As of now, many creators are earning $1 for almost 4000 views which is a massive increase from the previous 1000 views.

Prasar Bharti’s WAVES Far from Youtube Competitor As of Now

Last year, India’s govenrment owned channel Prasar Bharti launched its own OTT platform by the name of WAVES that allows the user to have video-on-demand (VOD), audio-on-demand (AOD), live TV/radio, events, e-books/magazines etc, across multiple Indian languages and devices. The platform also has allows for User generated content and the process is semi moderated.

While the above platform is appealing it still may have a long journey to match the rival Youtube.