Audio Description in India: The Complete Guide to Compliance in 2026

On February 6, 2026, the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting issued the finalized accessibility guidelines for OTT platforms — making audio description mandatory for every streaming service operating in India. India’s media accessibility rules have changed more in the last two years than they did in the previous two decades, and the pace is accelerating.

This guide covers every Indian accessibility regulation that affects media companies, with a focus on audio description. Whether you’re running an Indian OTT platform, a global streamer with Indian operations, or a production house supplying content to either, here’s what you need to know.

At Visonic AI, we produce broadcast-grade AI audio description in Hindi, English, and other languages — built for exactly the kind of high-volume, multi-language compliance that the Indian market demands. Our pricing is transparent and designed for the scale of India’s content libraries.

The Foundation: RPwD Act 2016

India’s disability rights framework rests on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act, 2016 (RPwD Act), which came into force in April 2017. It expanded the recognized categories of disability from 7 to 21, and it’s the legislative backbone for everything that’s followed.

For media companies, the key provisions are in Section 42, which requires the government to take measures ensuring that:

• All content available in audio, print, and electronic media is in accessible format
• Persons with disabilities have access to electronic media through audio description, sign language interpretation, and close captioning

The Act applies to both government and private sector organizations. The penalties — up to INR 10,000 for a first contravention, scaling to INR 5,00,000 for repeat offences — might look modest by global standards. But enforcement has teeth in other ways: the Act allows imprisonment of six months to five years for atrocities against persons with disabilities.

Why the RPwD Act Sat Dormant — and What Changed

For years, the RPwD Act’s media accessibility provisions were largely ignored. There was no implementing framework, no monitoring mechanism, and no enforcement body with the capacity or inclination to pursue compliance.

Two things changed that:

1. IS 17802 became law (May 2023): The Bureau of Indian Standards published India’s ICT accessibility standard, aligned with WCAG 2.1 and the European standard EN 301 549. When the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment incorporated it into the RPwD Rules, accessibility went from aspirational language to a measurable technical standard.

2. The CCPD started penalizing: In February 2025, the Chief Commissioner for Persons with Disabilities fined 155 organizations — government ministries and private companies alike — INR 10,000 each for failing to meet digital accessibility standards. The fines were small, but the signal was not.

The Game Changer: MIB OTT Accessibility Guidelines

The February 6, 2026 guidelines from the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting are the most significant development for Indian media accessibility to date. Here’s what they say.

What’s Required

Every OTT platform operating in India must provide:

For visually impaired viewers:

• Audio description (AD): Narration of visual elements — scenes, settings, actions, costumes — inserted during gaps in dialogue

For hearing impaired viewers (at least one of):

• Closed Captioning (CC)
• Open Captioning (OC)
• Indian Sign Language (ISL) interpretation

Platforms must also ensure their user interfaces — websites, mobile apps, smart TV apps — are accessible to persons with disabilities and compatible with assistive technologies.

The Timeline

The guidelines give platforms a 36-month compliance window from the date of publication (February 6, 2026). That means:

After the deadline, all newly published content must carry at least one accessibility feature for visually impaired viewers (AD) and one for hearing impaired viewers (CC/OC/ISL). Platforms must also display accessibility indicators — “(AD)”, “(CC)”, “(ISL)” — prominently at the time of release.

What About Existing Content?

The guidelines encourage platforms to extend accessibility features to their existing content libraries on a “best effort basis.” It’s not mandatory for back catalog, but the regulatory direction is clear, and any platform serious about serving its full audience will need to address the library eventually.

For platforms with thousands of hours of existing Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Bengali, and Kannada content, this is where AI-powered audio description becomes essential. Traditional manual AD simply can’t process libraries at that scale and across that many languages within any reasonable timeframe or budget.

Exemptions

The guidelines exempt three categories:

1. Live and deferred live content — real-time captioning and AD are technically challenging
2. Audio-only content — music, podcasts
3. Short-form content under 10 minutes — including advertisements

One important caveat: the short-form exemption applies only to standalone content, not to individual episodes or segments of a series. A 10-episode web series with 8-minute episodes still needs accessibility features.

Enforcement

The MIB will establish a Monitoring Committee chaired by a Joint Secretary-level officer that meets quarterly. The grievance redressal system has three tiers:

1. Self-regulation by the platform itself (15-day response window)
2. Self-regulatory body review (another 15-day window)
3. Central Government Monitoring Committee as final escalation

Platforms must submit quarterly Accessibility Conformance Reports starting from the compliance deadline.

Cinema: CBFC Accessibility Mandates

The MIB issued separate guidelines for cinema accessibility in March 2024, targeting films certified by the Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC).

India certifies more films annually than any other country. From March 2026, every one of them that goes through CBFC — whether destined for theatrical release or digital distribution — needs audio description and captioning. That’s a massive volume of content that needs AD produced efficiently and affordably.

Government Digital Content: GIGW and Constitutional Backing

India’s government accessibility standards have also been tightening steadily.

GIGW 3.0

The Guidelines for Indian Government Websites (GIGW 3.0) mandate WCAG 2.1 Level AA compliance for all government websites and mobile applications. This includes requirements for audio descriptions on pre-recorded video content and captions for live audio content. Every central, state, and departmental government website must comply.

The Supreme Court Elevates Digital Access to a Constitutional Right

In April 2025, in Pragya Prasun v. Union of India, the Supreme Court declared that the right to digital access is an intrinsic component of the right to life and personal liberty under Article 21 of the Constitution. The Court issued 20 directives to ensure digital services are accessible to all citizens.

This matters beyond the immediate ruling. Digital accessibility in India now has constitutional backing — a level of legal authority that goes further than any equivalent in the EU or the US. Future enforcement actions and litigation will invoke fundamental rights, not just statutory provisions.

SEBI Joins the Push

In July 2025, SEBI mandated digital accessibility for all regulated financial entities — stock exchanges, brokers, mutual funds, and others — with a compliance deadline of March 31, 2026. Entities must conform to WCAG 2.1, GIGW, and IS 17802, conduct accessibility audits by certified professionals, and include usability testing with persons with disabilities.

The financial sector mandate confirms that accessibility enforcement is broadening well beyond media and entertainment.

What’s Coming: The Broadcasting Bill

The draft Broadcasting Services (Regulation) Bill, 2024 would extend accessibility requirements to all broadcast services in India:

• Video programs must include subtitles and audio description in various languages
• Audio content must be translated to sign language
• Broadcasting applications must be accessible
• Every broadcaster must appoint a Disability Grievance Officer
• Annual accessibility audit reports must be submitted to the government

The bill was recalled in August 2024 and hasn’t been reintroduced yet. But the provisions signal where Indian broadcast regulation is heading. When it passes — and it will, in some form — it will extend OTT-style accessibility mandates to traditional broadcasting as well.

The Scale of the Opportunity

Here’s the part that most compliance conversations miss: India’s accessibility mandate isn’t just a regulatory burden. It’s an enormous market opportunity.

The Numbers

India has roughly 70 million people with visual impairments — one quarter of the world’s blind population. The vast majority of them have no access to audio description for the content they watch on India’s booming OTT platforms. When platforms add audio description, they’re not just checking a regulatory box. They’re opening their content to an underserved audience of tens of millions.

And here’s the business reality: accessible content performs better for everyone. Audio description helps viewers following a show in a noisy environment, people watching in a second language, and anyone who wants richer context while they’re cooking, commuting, or multitasking. The platforms that figure this out first will have a real competitive edge.

The Multi-Language Challenge

India’s linguistic diversity makes audio description compliance uniquely complex. A single OTT platform might carry content in Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Bengali, Kannada, Malayalam, Marathi, and Gujarati — and that’s not even the full list. Each language needs its own audio description track.

Traditional manual AD in a single language costs $15-50 per finished minute. Multiply that by eight languages across a library of thousands of hours, and the budget becomes untenable. This is exactly where AI-powered, multi-language audio description changes the economics.

Visonic AI already produces broadcast-grade audio description in Hindi and English, with more Indian languages on our roadmap. Our self-serve cloud portal lets you upload content, select your language, and get a complete audio description back — script, timing, and synthesized voice track — without waiting on vendors or managing complex procurement. See our pricing for details.

Beyond Compliance: Modernising Your Content

Treating accessibility as a box-ticking exercise misses the bigger picture. The smartest media companies are using this compliance moment to modernise how they operate.

Audio Description Makes Your Content Better

Well-produced audio description doesn’t just serve visually impaired viewers. It adds a layer of production value that benefits the wider audience. It provides context that helps viewers stay engaged when they’re distracted, when they’re following a complex plot across multiple episodes, or when they’re watching content in a language they don’t fully speak.

For Indian platforms operating across multiple languages and regions, AD is a content enrichment tool, not just a compliance checkbox.

Auto Summarisation Makes Your Library Discoverable

If you’re tackling a library of thousands of hours of content, this is also a good moment to address discoverability. Visonic AI’s Auto Summarisation generates concise, context-aware summaries of video content — extracting key points and automatically generating chapters. When you’re already processing your library for AD, running auto summarisation alongside it gives you better metadata, better search results, and a better user experience at marginal additional cost.

For platforms that have grown their libraries faster than their ability to catalogue them, this is an opportunity to get your content in order while you’re meeting the accessibility mandate.

Build It In, Don’t Bolt It On

The organisations that will handle India’s accessibility requirements most efficiently are the ones building AD and captioning into their content workflow from the start — not the ones scrambling to retrofit a decade of back catalog two years from now.

Visonic AI’s self-serve cloud portal is designed for exactly this workflow. Upload your content as it’s produced, generate audio description and summaries, and publish — all from your browser. No procurement process, no vendor management, no back-and-forth on briefs.

How India Compares Globally

For global media companies operating across multiple markets, here’s how India’s accessibility requirements stack up:

Two things stand out. First, India’s penalties are currently lower than the EU and US, but enforcement is accelerating faster than either market did at a comparable stage. The Delhi High Court contempt proceedings that forced the MIB guidelines show that India’s judiciary is willing to push hard.

Second, India’s multi-language complexity is unmatched. A platform that can produce AD in five or six Indian languages efficiently has a massive operational advantage over competitors still doing it manually one language at a time.

For our complete analysis of the US regulatory picture, see Audio Description Mandates in the USA: The Complete 2026 Guide. For the European picture, see European Accessibility Act: Audio Description Compliance.

What Compliance Costs

Traditional manual audio description in India runs roughly INR 1,000-3,500 per finished minute (USD 12-40), depending on language and quality level. That covers scripting, voice talent, recording, mixing, and QC.

For a mid-sized OTT platform with 5,000 hours of content and plans to cover three languages, the traditional approach looks like this:

• 300,000 minutes of content x 3 languages = 900,000 minutes of AD needed
• At INR 1,500/minute: INR 135 crore (~USD 16 million)
• Timeline: Years of production work

AI-powered audio description changes the economics entirely:

The cost difference is dramatic, and the multi-language advantage of AI is decisive for the Indian market. For a detailed comparison of AI versus manual AD costs, see our Complete Cost Comparison.

Visonic AI produces broadcast-grade AI audio description at the most competitive price point in the industry. We publish our pricing transparently, because compliance budgeting shouldn’t require a sales call.

A Practical Compliance Roadmap

Whether you’re a major OTT platform or a regional content producer, here’s how to approach India’s accessibility requirements:

Now (2026)

1. Audit your content library: How many hours? How many languages? What percentage already has AD or captioning?
2. Map your obligations: OTT content falls under MIB guidelines (36-month window). Cinema content needs AD by March 2026 for CBFC certification. Government content needs GIGW compliance now.
3. Pilot AI audio description: Test on a batch of content in your primary language. Compare quality, cost, and turnaround against your current manual workflow.
4. Build accessibility into new content workflows: Every piece of content produced from today should include AD and captioning as standard deliverables, not afterthoughts.

2027-2028

5. Scale across languages: Extend AD to your second and third most-watched languages. AI-powered AD makes this economically viable.
6. Address back catalog systematically: Prioritize by viewership data — describe your most-watched content first.
7. Implement auto summarisation: While you’re processing content for AD, generate summaries for discoverability and better metadata.
8. Prepare for quarterly reporting: The Accessibility Conformance Reports will be due from the compliance deadline.

2029 and Beyond

9. Full compliance: All new content carries AD and CC/OC/ISL by default.
10. Monitor the Broadcasting Bill: When it passes, broadcast content will face similar requirements.
11. Expect requirements to expand: India’s track record over the last two years suggests that enforcement will only get stricter.

The Big Picture

India’s media accessibility mandate is the largest in Asia and, given the country’s linguistic diversity, the most operationally complex anywhere in the world. The 36-month window feels generous today, but for platforms with content libraries measured in tens of thousands of hours across half a dozen languages, it goes fast.

The regulatory trajectory is clear. The RPwD Act laid the groundwork. The courts forced the government’s hand. The MIB guidelines put a deadline on it. The Supreme Court gave it constitutional backing. There is no scenario in which these requirements get rolled back. They will only expand.

For media companies operating in India, the question is no longer whether you need audio description. It’s whether you’re going to produce it at a cost and speed that lets you actually meet the deadline — and whether you’ll treat it as just compliance, or as a genuine opportunity to serve a bigger audience with better content.

At Visonic AI, we produce broadcast-grade AI audio description across multiple languages, with transparent pricing built for the scale of Indian content libraries. Whether you’re a major OTT platform facing the 36-month deadline or a production house that wants to deliver accessible content from day one, our self-serve cloud portal lets you get started in minutes.

For a broader view of accessibility regulations across all markets, see our Global Video Accessibility Compliance Map.

Visonic AI delivers the highest quality AI-powered audio description at the best price in the industry. See our pricing, or get in touch to discuss your compliance needs.