Last date of application for investments in Noida international film city extended

The film city will have a number of features, pre-production, post-production and film tourism. It will also have space for creative media art production, music dubbing studios, editing studios, VFX studios, premiere arenas, film festival arenas, special effects studios, film museum and theme park. Photo: Ashish Mishra

The Yamuna Expressway Industrial Development Authority (YEIDA) has extended the last date of application for investments in its film city project near Noida from February 28 to March 31. Bids will be opened on March 31 itself, YEIDA officials said.

“The extension was done on the request of prospective bidders,” an official, who wished not to be quoted, said.

Arun Vir Singh, CEO, YEIDA, said that global companies like Sony have shown interest in the project, which is being helmed by the Authority.

The film city will come up in Sector 21, along the Yamuna Expressway. A pet project of Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, it is planned on an area of 1,000 acres and will be 6 km from the upcoming international airport in Jewar and 12 km from the Eastern Peripheral Expressway.

“We have floated a global tender for the film city. It is coming up in Sector 21 and we have received many queries from big guns like Sony, Fox, Universal,” Singh told Moneycontrol in an interview.

He, however, did not divulge the number of film companies or production houses that have come forward for the bidding process.

“Only when they apply will we be able to know because the tender system is such that you cannot know the name before opening the bids. So we are waiting for that, but we hope that some big companies will come,” Singh said.

Second global tender

This is the second global tender as the first one did not receive a good response from bidders. The first request for proposal (RFP) was floated on November 22, 2021. It was revised on August 27, 2022.

Officials said that, on October 13, 2022, the Uttar Pradesh government had approved the revised film city tender and the second RFP or global tender was published on October 17, 2022. The last date to submit applications was February 14, 2023, which was extended to February 28, 2023.

A YEIDA official said that the film city is a big project and the initial response has been tepid as specialised players are required to handle such a big-ticket project in a better and efficient way.

The YEIDA CEO said that if the response towards the project remains tepid in future, too, the Authority may think of allotting plots in fragments.

“In that case we may plan to allocate small, small plots to different companies. However, any decision in this regard is yet to be taken and we hope that we will get enough eligible bidders in this global tender,” Singh said.

According to officials, YEIDA has been exploring three models: public-private partnership, the Authority alone or another single developer to develop the project.

Property consultant CBRE South Asia was, on December 14, 2020, selected for making the detailed project report (DPR) of the proposed film city near Noida.

Noida International Airport series

What does film city offer?

The film city will have a number of features, pre-production, post-production and film tourism. It will also have space for creative media art production, music dubbing studios, editing studios, VFX studios, premiere arenas, film festival arenas, special effects studios, film museum and theme park.

It will also have hotels and retail and commercial offices. The Uttar Pradesh government had, in February 2023, approved its Film Policy 2023, under which several types of subsidies have been provisioned.

A subsidy of 50 percent of the cost will be given, if the films are made in Awadhi, Braj, Bundeli or Bhojpuri languages. For films in English, Hindi or other languages, the subsidy amount will be 25 percent of the cost.

Similarly, the policy also has a provision of providing a maximum of Rs 1 crore subsidy for films having more than half of the shoot days in Uttar Pradesh.

According to YEIDA officials, the international film city has been envisaged to be developed as a media and entertainment cluster, with access to film schools and institutions, and real estate to augment the growth of media industry in the region.

A YEIDA official said that the land cost for the project would be borne by the state government and YEIDA. The developer would recover the expenditure through realisations from rent and lease, he said.