The government is committed to developing the State as a cinema hub with the support of the Telugu film industry, Human Resource Development Minister Ganta Srinivasa Rao and IT Minister Palle Raghunatha Reddy said here on Friday.
At an informal meeting held with the representatives of film industry at the Secretariat here, the Ministers said all the 13 districts in the State had beautiful and serene locations ideal for shooting films and promised that the government would extend necessary cooperation for the overall development of cinema industry.
The Ministers advised industry representatives to make Visakhapatnam a base camp or a centre for making films. They also elicited opinion from representatives of A.P. Film Chamber of Commerce and A.P. Film Federation, producers, directors, writers, artistes and technicians.
The representatives said A.P. and Telangana were equally important for the development of the industry. “To shift the industry to Visakhapatnam, incentives should be extended to small and big films as was given during former Chief Minister Marri Chenna Reddy’s rule when the industry shifted to Hyderabad from Chennai,” they said. The single window system presently implemented in Karnataka and Delhi with an escort officer should be set up immediately for according all kinds of permission, including from the police department for film shootings at government owned parks, institutions, beaches, forests and temples without much delay, they added.
A Skill Development Centre and a Film University should be set up in Visakhapatnam, and film courses should be introduced in all universities. Public-private partnership mode of system has to be introduced for setting up animation, gaming and computer graphics studios and multiplexes in Visakhapatnam. Land should be allocated for developing cinema SEZ and filmnagar, besides constructing houses for cinema workers and technicians, they said.
