NEW DELHI: Leaving behind Europe’s picturesque locations and Paris’ Eiffel Tower, Bollywood seems to have discovered its lost love for Delhi again.
The capital will see bumper shootings of Bollywood films this year. The tourism department’s data has revealed that they have received 40 requests for film shootings and the figure is expected to touch 75 by the end of this year. This despite the fact that various departments, including the tourism department, have recently increased the rates for shooting by almost 40%.
Earlier, the government used to get only 6-7 shooting requests a year. Locations like Agrasen ki Baoli and Tughlaqabad Fort are the new choices of directors, while Delhi’s heart Connaught Place is no more in the list of options.
A line producer, who is responsible for arranging infrastructure and permission for shooting in Delhi, told The Sunday Standard that Bollywood is not able to freely using Delhi locations due to inter-department fights. “We are still waiting for a single-window counter for shooting bookings. This number can still witness a steep rise if we get simple procedure to get permissions.
To shoot in Delhi, we require permission from a total of 18 agencies, including police and Delhi government. But the inter-department fights have delayed the streamlining of process,” he said. The tourism department senior official said in 2013, six-seven movies were shot in Delhi, following which Delhi government had decided to open a single-window counter. In 2016, almost two dozen movies were shot in Delhi.
Earlier, many agencies had no guidelines to give permission for shootings. “We had asked these agencies to prepare guidelines, and finally we have the guidelines,” a senior tourism ministry official said. A meeting was held with the 18 stakeholders in April where it was decided that permissions will be given for a maximum of 10 days.