Film-Infotainment city & Ethnic village

Sandesh Prabhudesai
1 October 2001  

A plateau in central Goa, which came into limelight due to controversial Nylon 6,6 project in late '90s, will be now a special attraction for Bollywood - a film city, combined with infotainment city and ethnic village.

The Bharatiya Janata Party government in the state has decided to invite expressions of interest from private parties to build 'heaven' on the 400 acres of land, situated on the banks of river Mandovi, in Keri village of Ponda taluka.

"We plan to have different kind of mixed model", said chief minister Manohar Parrikar, while announcing the cabinet decision in this regard. He plans to have it on the lines of Chowki Dhani, near Jaipur in Rajasthan.

While not denying that even film star Jackie Shroff has been bidding for the project, Parrikar says at least 10 to 12 parties have approached him till date, including 7 to 8 expressions of interest having received in writing.

The bidder will have a choice, either to give a joint proposal for all three or different proposals for all three different projects.

The proposal for a film city has been pending for long, combined with a plan to set up Film City Development Corporation. Interestingly, Goa does not produce any film locally, except few video films.

But its idyllic beaches or old houses with Portuguese architecture and even the interior forest, greenery and waterways has become a major attraction for Bollywood film makers nowadays, especially with Kashmir becoming a risky location.

With private participation, the state plans to have a full-fledged state of the art studio and other infrastructural facilities, including on-line system to transfer the films to their headquarters in metros.

The infotainment city, says Parrikar, will be a revised version of the Essel World, where amusement will be a combination of entertainment, information and technology.

Similarly, around 80 acres of land will be reserved to build an ethnic village, portraying real life of rural Goa - a mixture of Hindu and Christian culture - and traditional set up of the tiny state, which is slowly becoming alien nowadays in the state itself.

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