Bhopal still looking for its own film city

The Madhya Pradesh industries department has handed over the task of searching a private player for the proposed Bhopal film city project to the Department of Culture after several rounds of talks with actor-turned-politician Shatrughan Sinha failed.

“We haved handed over the project to the Department of Culture,” said Satyaprakash, principal secretary, Department of Commerce and Industries.

However, the culture department has not moved further in finding a private player to initiate the show business in Bhopal.

“We are yet to find a private player for the project,” Manoj Shrivastava, secretary of the Department of Culture, said.

Sinha, who was accorded a red-carpet welcome, had discussed the project with various officials and also Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan.

After his departure, few players evinced interest and discussed it with the officials of the industries department. The state government has earmarked an area of 430 acres near the CRPF unit at Bagroda village near Bhopal.

Sinha, who had visited the city in October last year, had said he wanted to create a common platform for art, theatre and cinema.

The actor-turned-politician briefed about his plans to set up a training centre in cinematography, video editing, studios, dress and fashion designing facilities, necessary cutting-edge technology and technical facilities including song recording, animation, sound and vision mixing, preview theatre, most probably acting school, a star-category hotel and parks to attract Indian as well as foreign film-makers.

Earlier, another actor Jitendra had also expressed interest in the Bhopal film city project with a star category hotel but restricted to talks.

Many film makers have shown interest in the Bhopal film city project in the last four years.

At present, Bollywood director Prakash Jha is camping in Bhopal to shoot some of the best locations for his upcoming film ‘Rajniti’.