BENGALURU: A day after Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) authorities denied that they gave permission to shoot a movie inside the civic agency’s head office premises, the officials have now taken a U-turn and have admitted they allowed a Tamil movie crew to shoot inside their office. The movie crew reportedly paid a sum of Rs 20,000 to shoot the movie in 2016.
On November 7, The New Indian Express had carried an article highlighting that Imaikkaa Nodigal, a Tamil movie, had been shot inside the head office premises of the civic body which raised a controversy as BBMP authorities maintained they had not granted permission for it.
Mayor Gangambike Mallikarjun and ruling party leader M Shivaraj both had said BBMP had not granted permission to shoot the movie at their head office. They even went a step ahead to suggest that the crew may have used a drone to shoot, which again was not permissible, they said. “Never in the history of BBMP, we have given permission to shoot any commercial movie inside our office,” the Mayor had stated.
Now, BBMP Commissioner N Manjunatha Prasad has issued a release where he said that from time to time they give permissions to film crew units to shoot within their head office premises.
Imaikkaa Nodigal was also given permission from the BBMP, for which an amount of Rs 20,000 was paid as fees in 2016. He also said many Kannada films had been given permission to shoot inside the office premises.