Spotlight

Northern state tourism boards woo Bollywood

The City Beautiful built lovingly by Le Corbusier is throwing open its doors to filmmakers across the country. At a recently held cinematic conclave of tourism promotion in Mumbai, Chandigarh Tourism, in collaboration with Punjab and Haryana tourism boards , showcased the union territory as an ideal film locale. Organised by the Centre for Media & Entertainment Studies (CMES), the conclave outlined why the film fraternity should make a beeline to these regions. Neeti Mehra finds out what they have in store.

In an attempt to capitalise on the tourism boom caused by cinema, CMES organised a cinematic conclave to promote Chandigarh and the northern states of Punjab and Haryana as ideal cinematic destinations. Hosting the evening were Krishna Mohan, home secretary and secretary tourism, Union Territory (UT) of Chandigarh and Vivek Atray, director tourism, UT Chandigarh. Representing Haryana and Punjab respectively were the managing directors, tourism, Vijai Vardhan and Jagjit Puri. Attended by stalwarts of the film industry, the conclave sought to ignite the imagination of the Mumbai cinematic and television industry in opting to shoot in these regions and provide an impetus to cinematic tourism.

A host of measures were announced to attract the entertainment industry. The cinematic tourism promotion for this region will be Web enabled for easy access. A cinematic tourism office for north India will be set up which would facilitate single window system clearances. This would ensure that production houses could get clearances initiated and processed from Mumbai itself. Chandigarh, Punjab, Haryana, along with Himachal Pradesh would jointly promote cinematic tourism packages. The administrations of the respective states and the UT will pro-actively look into all concerned affairs to ease the information flow and provide logistical support to the crews.

Speaking on this, Vivek Atray said, "Chandigarh is the tourism, cultural, educational, corporate and business hub of north India. It has a lot to offer in terms of tourism opportunities, apart from its beautiful locations to suit all cinematic themes. It has a convenient rail-air and road connectivity with Mumbai. We offer single window clearances to shoot in any location. Apart from this, hotel discounts, information and logistical support will be provided. Our favourable cinematic policy will allow online bookings also." Over 5 lakh domestic tourists and over 19,000 international tourists had visited Chandigarh till October this year.

The Punjab government has invested approximately Rs 100 crore for the media and entertainment industry this year. Jagjit Puri, managing director, Punjab tourism, said, "The aim of this conclave is to interact with the film and television industry, understand their needs and find out their problems. It is an integrated effort to promote north India. Punjab alone has 99 heritage sites. All these sites have been opened for shooting at nominal rates with a single window clearance. The state government provides 50% entertainment tax exemption for all films produced in Punjabi." Apart from this cinematic tourism, the administration will also promote religious tourism, freedom movement tourism, eco-tourism and heritage tourism and adventure tourism.

Vijai Vardhan, managing director, Haryana tourism, speaking about Haryana's rich diversity said, "Haryana has a rich history and offers filmmakers an ideal platform to make films. We have a good law and order situation and a helpful administration.”

He further added, "We are concentrating on heritage tourism. For instance, The Pinjore Gardens, which are the oldest Mughal gardens surviving in the Indian-subcontinent, are only 20 kms from Chandigarh. We are spending a sum of Rs 5 crores for preserving and maintaining the old palaces and monuments inside this property. Such sites are ideal locales for shoots because they are just the right fusion of beauty, culture and modern amenities." Haryana is also looking to promote adventure tourism.

Dr Gulshan Sharma, executive director, CMES said, "We aim to promote the northern states as a cinematic hub and today we invite producers and directors to shoot in these picturesque locales. We have streamlined the process to make this region a hub for the media, cinematic and television entertainment industry. This in turn will generate revenue and employment."

It was also announced that the first 'World Punjabi Film Festival and Awards' will be held in Chandigarh next year. The four-day event, organised by the CMES and the ITFT (Institute of Tourism and Future Management Trends) Chandigarh, would conclude in conjunction with the World Tourism Day celebrations, on September 27, 2006. For the first time the film, television, music, radio and theatre industry would be integrated on the same platform, with Punjabi artists from the world over converging for this event.