Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath, who was in Bombay to list the Lucknow Municipal Corporation bond at the Bombay Stock Exchange this morning (2nd December), seized the opportunity to meet Bollywood producers, stars and other industry people to discuss his ambitious plans of a Film City in the NCR in U.P. The meeting, planned in advance with the help of producer Rahul Mittra, was fairly well attended, considering that in view of the COVID-19 restrictions, a lot of Bollywood personalities are still not comfortable visiting places where many people are present. Nevertheless, Boney Kapoor, Manmohan Shetty, Anand Pandit, Arjun Rampal, Satish Kaushik, Ravi Kishan, Raju Srivastava, Tigmanshu Dhulia, Pahlaj Nihalani, Anil Sharma, Narendra Hirawat, Shreyans Hirawat, Aashish Singh, Honey Trehan, Umesh Shukla, Ajay Kapoor, Rudro Dutta, Jayantilal Gada, Vikram Khakhar and Komal Nahta were among those present at the hour-long meeting held at Trident Hotel, Nariman Point.
In a brief speech, Yogi Adityanath promised to build a world-class Film City in the National Capital Region (NCR) in U.P. For that, he said, he would need the support of the industry people. In fact, he explained, “Let it not be just a government project, let the government and the film industry collaborate and make a world-class Film City.” The land for the Film City has already been earmarked. The Film City will be developed on a 1,000-acre plot of the Yamuna Expressway Industrial Development Authority (YEIDA) in Sector 21. It will be close to the upcoming Jewar International Airport at Greater NOIDA in Uttar Pradesh, making it possible for film units to reach the venue within minutes of landing at the airport. Furthermore, the site would be made accessible through multiple modes viz. direct access to expressway through an interchange loop; in proximity of the Delhi-Bombay expressway; high-speed rail directly from Jewar International Airport; Metro station to be located near the Film City site.
The government of Uttar Pradesh and the YEIDA will create common facility infrastructure for the parties interested in setting up studios and production units in the Film City. The model for development of the Film City has not been finalised, and the various models under consideration are:
(i) Complete land transfer to a private developer who develops and then leases the land to individual parties.
(ii) YEIDA prepares the site plan and leases individual plots to interested parties.
(iii) The government of U.P. and YEIDA join hands and create infrastructure and further lease the facility for shootings and filmmaking.