Film City, a pet project of Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, seemed to have hit a stonewall after a tepid response from potential bidders to two global tenders.
People at the Yamuna Expressway Industrial Development Authority (YEIDA) aware of the development said top officials will meet in Lucknow on Wednesday, April 5, to find a way out of the impasse and decide on a future course.
The people said YEIDA had been exploring three potential models to develop the project – public-private partnerships, the Authority executing the project on its own, or awarding it to a single entity.
“The April 5 meeting is likely to discuss all these issues before deciding on the way forward,” one of the people said.
“They are expected to discuss if plots in Film City can be allotted to separate bidders from the film industry, with YEIDA developing necessary infrastructure amenities,” this person said.
Film City is planned to be built on 1,000 acres in Sector 21 of YIEDA. It will be situated 6 km from the upcoming international airport in Jewar and 12 km from the Eastern Peripheral Expressway (EPE).
Lukewarm response
The first global tender for the project was floated on November 22, 2021. It was revised on August 27, 2022. On October 13, 2022, the Uttar Pradesh government approved the revised tender and the second Request for Proposal (RFP) was published on October 17, 2022.
The deadline for submission of applications in response to the second tender was February 14, 2023, which was extended to February 28 and then to March 31.
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The people cited above said YEIDA had been looking for a specialist entity to handle the big-ticket project efficiently, but failed to find a find suitable applicant even in the second global tender.
Friday’s meeting will discuss if the deadline for the second tender should be extended to allow seasoned film industry associates to apply for the ambitious project, the people said.
Individual plots
YEIDA’s Chief Executive Officer Arun Vir Singh had said in an earlier interview to Moneycontrol that if the response towards the project remains lukewarm, the Authority may think of allotting plots in fragments to filmmakers and companies associated with the movie industry.
Property consultant CBRE South Asia was on December 14, 2020, selected to prepare a detailed project report on Film City, which will feature pre- and post-production facilities and film tourism.
It will also have space for creative media art production, music dubbing studios, editing studios, VFX studios, movie premiere areas, film festival areas, a film museum and theme park.
YEIDA is in touch with some filmmakers and people from film fraternity for executing the project, the people cited above said. Last month, filmmaker KC Bokadia met the YEIDA CEO and showed interest in developing a studio in Film City. Earlier, representatives of music and film production company T-Series also met the CEO and sought details of the project.
The Authority is also in touch with a local film producer for the development of the project, the people said, adding that global music and film companies such as Sony, Fox and Universal had also shown interest, but no one had formally applied so far.
Subsidies on offer
To promote film shoots in Uttar Pradesh, the state government had in February 2023 approved the Film Policy project, 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 will be 25 percent of the cost.
The policy also has a provision of providing a maximum of Rs 1 crore subsidy for films that schedule more than half of the shooting days in Uttar Pradesh.
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 rents and leases, he said.
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