Film City inches closer to reality as Siddaramaiah directs KIADB to transfer land

Bengaluru: The proposed film city project took wing with chief minister Siddaramaiah directing Karnataka Industrial Area Development Board (KIADB) on Wednesday to hand over 110 acres at Immavu village, Mysuru district, to the information department.
Siddaramaiah also directed information department officials to float a tender to execute the project which will involve public-private partnership.
A KIADB meeting is scheduled on Thursday and the agency is expected to decide on handing over the land. Meanwhile, information department officials said they would float a tender to select a transactional advisor (consultant firm for the project), as the first step, and subsequent procedural steps would follow once the detailed project report (DPR) is finalised.
"We expect KIADB to hand over the land soon," said KV Trilok Chandra, secretary, information department. "Parallelly, we will kickstart the process to select a transaction advisor as it involves various steps leading to identifying a concessionaire partner."
During a meeting with officials and representatives of the film industry, Siddaramaiah decided to grant an additional 50 acres for the project. This additional land will be used for the second phase of the project. The CM issued directions for a land grant.
Siddaramaiah also directed officials to take steps to develop film tourism at the Film City as part of the new tourism policy. Adding the tourism element will help the state govt secure central funds under the Union govt's tourism policy.
"This is a long pending project," said filmmaker SV Rajendra Singh Babu, who represented the film industry in the meeting. "It was put on the backburner despite the project being proposed in the 2015-16 budget. We are thankful to the chief minister for this decisive step."
The govt has envisioned a state of art film city that will have modern infrastructure including studios, post-production theatres, multiplexes, theme parks and hotels.