Noida Film City taking wingsNoida Film City taking wings

Virendra Singh Rawat

Film producer Boney Kapoor led consortium has won the bid to develop the proposed 1,000-acre Film City in Noida.

In the financial bidding, which were opened yesterday, Bayview Projects LLP pipped three other contenders by quoting the maximum 18% gross revenue sharing for the Film City, which will be an hour’s drive from the undrerconstruction Jewar international airport.

Last week, four companies had cleared the technical bidding stage for the ambitious project of the Yogi Adityanath government in UP.

Apart from the consortium of Bayview Projects, promoted by Kapoor and others, 4 Lions Films promoted by filmmaker K C Bokadia and others, Supersonic Technobuild promoted by actor Akshay Kumar and others, and Super Cassettes Industries (T-Series) helmed by late Gulshan Kumar’s son Bhushan Kumar, were also in fray.

While Bayview Projects topped the tally with 18 percent gross revenue sharing, Supersonic Technobuild, Super Cassettes Industries and 4 Lions Films quoted 10.8 percent, 5.27 percent and 5.12 percent respectively.

According to nodal agency Yamuna Expressway Industrial Development Authority (YEIDA) CEO Arun Vir Singh, now the matter will be placed before a committee of secretaries for vetting and forwarding to the state cabinet for final approval.

Noida Film City is conceptualised to rival the Mumbai Film industry by offering a world-class filmmaking ecosystem along with modern air and road network.

Earlier, the project, with estimated cost of Rs 10,000 crore, had twice failed to attract bidders due to high investment requirement and prohibitive bidding terms.

Later, the state tweaked the bidding terms to make it more attractive to investors and entrepreneurs, and develop it in phases with greater commercial viability. The first phase of the project would span 230 acres.

In Sep 2020, the Yogi government 1.0 had announced plans to develop a state-of-art Noida Film City of 1,000 acres in the National Capital Region (NCR).

Given the growing popularity of OTT and media streaming platforms, the Noida Film City is envisioned to offer a high capacity data centre along with pre-production and post-production infrastructure, processing labs, VFX and digital technology of global benchmark.

In Feb 2023, the Yogi cabinet had approved the new UP Film Policy 2023 with the provisions applicable to the films produced in the proposed Noida Film City as well.

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