Promo poster of GoldenEye: Rogue Agent, a game Maya students worked on

It’s raining animation centres in Calcutta. Within days of Growel Academy opening its doors to train animation talent in the city, Mumbai-based Maya Academy of Advanced Cinematics launched two new centres on Friday.

The animation training chain, part of film director Ketan Mehta and his wife Deepa Sahi’s visual effects studio Maya Entertainment, had centres on Park Street and at Salt Lake since 2002.

The new centres are located on Rashbehari Avenue and Girish Park.

“We have received very good talent from Calcutta. The new centres will help cater to students from the Northeast and Bangladesh as well,” said Rajesh Turakhia, CEO of Maya Entertainment Limited.

The centres have a capacity of 150 students each and offer a range of courses in animation, between Rs 50,000 and Rs 1.6 lakh.

“The use of animation is increasing significantly in films, advertising, gaming, computer-aided design and the Internet. As a result, there is a great demand for trained personnel,” Turakhia offered.

Maya has 43 centres across the country, training nearly 4,000 students. Seven of its centres are scheduled to become operational soon at locations such as London, Dubai, Nepal, Abu Dhabi and Kuala Lumpur. “We also plan to set up an animation college in Calcutta within a year,” Turakhia said.

Though there are no immediate plans to open a production centre in the city, the company is not ruling out that possibility either, he added.