Common Service Centre (CSC) e-Governance Services in collaboration with October Cinemas will open 10,000 cinemas in rural areas of India by the end of 2024. An agreement to this effect was signed between CSC, an SPV under the ministry of electronics and IT, and October Cinemas. The aim is to open around 1 lakh small cinemas of 100-200 seats each, in rural areas. The cinemas are expected to open new avenues for village-level entrepreneurs. They will also work as commercial hubs, “making our services more accessible to the people in rural areas,” said CSC managing director Sanjay Kumar Rakesh.
As per the Memorandum of Understanding, CSC will open 1,500 cinemas by the end of next year. Reportedly, the cinemas will have features to control film piracy. According to Punit Desai, managing director of October Cinemas, “We have already got over 5,000 express of interest requests from village-level entrepreneurs.” Desai added that an investment of around Rs. 15 lakh is needed to run these cinemas which will have video parlour cinema licences.