Bengaluru: With Information Minister R. Roshan Baig ordering the authorities to stop the work on Amrutotsava Bhavan, the dream of Karnataka to have a permanent venue to organise Bangalore International Film Festival (BIFFes) on the lines of Nandan in Kolkata and Siri Fort in New Delhi has come crashing down.
This development has disappointed the organisers of BIFFes and film enthusiasts, who were expecting that an exclusive venue will be ready for BIFFes that is coming up in December.
Following an appeal by the Karnataka Chalanachitra Academy (KCA) that has been organising BIFFes from the past three years, the government had decided to develop Amrutotsava Bhavan as permanent venue.
Funds set aside
Making an announcement on developing Amrutotsava Bhavan as the permanent BIFFes venue, Chief Minister Siddaramaiah had earmarked Rs. 10 crore in this year’s budget for developing multiplex theatres with four-screen facility to organise BIFFes, and to establish a film museum in Amrutotsava Bhavan that is under construction at Nandini Layout.
Speaking to presspersons, Mr. Baig said he had directed the authorities to stop construction as the quality and the facility in the structure would not match the expected international standards to organise BIFFes. “I proposed to the Chief Minister to shift the venue and he agreed to that,” he added.
Original plan
According to official sources, a decision was taken to build the Amrutotsava Bhavan to mark 75 years of Kannada cinema. Initial plan was to develop Madhyama Bhavan and Amrutotsava Bhavan on 2.5 acres of land allotted by the Bangalore Development Authority in Nandini Layout. However, bowing to the pressure from the Karnataka Film Chamber of Commerce, it was finally decided to build a structure to meet all the needs of Kannada film industry.
The plan was to develop a 500-seat screen, museum of film production equipment, gallery of photographs of Kannada film personalities, video and book library on cinema.
The construction commenced in 2009-10 with an estimated cost of Rs. 5.87 crore.
The Department of Information that was supposed to monitor the work to develop a state-of-the-art film venue took little initiative in that direction. Meanwhile, the Public Works Department started constructing a ‘regular’ structure. When Mr. Roshan Baig inspected the work undertaken, he felt that the structure that was coming up was not meeting the international standards, and so ordered that the construction should be stopped.
