Puducherry eyeing to cash in on 'Life of Pi' success

As Ang Lee's 'Life of Pi' bagged four Oscars, the Puducherry Government today announced plans to develop as tourist destinations all the 18 locations where the India-set drama was shot in this former French colony.
The Department of Tourism has drawn up plans to develop all the 18 locations associated with 'Life of Pi', which bagged Oscar awards in the categories of best direction, best original score, best cinematography and best visual effects at the 85th Academy Awards.
"The news of the Ang Lee's 'Life of Pi' bagging a big number of awards is most thrilling and exciting," Director of Puducherry Tourism Dr A S Sivakumar told PTI here.

He noted that a good chunk of the movie, 3D survival tale of an shipwrecked Indian boy lost in the ocean with a Bengal tiger, was shot in Puducherry and in Munnar in Kerala.
Sivakumar said the movie shot between 2009 and 2010 in Puducherry associated the venues like the more than century old government botanical garden, the beach road, a few places of worship of different hues and also the residential zones of the Tamil and French population in the union territory.
He said the government had drawn up plans to promote the locations where the movie's big chunk had been shot in Puducherry.

"Tourist potential of the locations had been brought to focus...We will make use of the Rs 120 crore grant the Centre had finalised for tourism promotion project to develop these locations in view of their rise to prominence," he said.
Sivakumar said that a team of Puducherry Government officials had held discussions with the top brass in the Union Ministry of Tourism some months ago and a road show had also been scheduled to be held in Hong Kong, Taiwan and a few other countries in the South Asian block.
"We will be able to showcase Puducherry abroad through this film and this would enable us to bring more tourists from China and other pockets to the southern parts of India and more specifically to Puducherry as the tourists normally visit the Buddhist circuits in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar," he said.