KCR says state to set up Cine City

While rumours are awash that the Telugu film industry is considering shifting base either to Visakhapatnam, Tada near Chennai or to the Tamil Nadu capital itself from where it first began, the move by Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao to allocate 2,000 acres of land to build a Cine City could encourage the financially significant industry from leaving the new state.

Finalising a new draft industrial policy, Rao announced he is setting aside 2000 acres of land on the Hyderabad-Warangal highway for the project.

“No other place in south India has a more suitable climate than Hyderabad,” he said, stressing that his government is determined to retain the Telugu industry which would create a large number of technical and non-technical jobs.

“I want the Cine City to have all the state-of-the-art facilities in movie and film making. Rerecording, post production, dubbing, graphics and everything,” Rao told advisor to the government Papa Rao, principal secretary for industries Pradeep Chandra and commissioner Jayesh Ranjan at a review meeting on industrial policy.

In return, the Telangana government wants jobs for its youngsters at Cine City. In creating the government’s own film city, the chief minister has not only ventured to counter the monopoly of the four big film studios – Ramoji Film City, Annapurna, Ramanaiadu and Padmalaya studios–but placed the government in a position to ensure that filmmakers no longer ignored Telangana’s culture and dialect.