UP govt allows commercial complexes on theatre land
Vishal Sharma
New Delhi/ Agra. The UP government has decided to allow the owners of closed movie theatres to utilise the land for building commercial complexes, on the condition that they build a minimum 300-seat mini theatre in the complex.
According to sources in the UP entertainment department, over the past decade, with the advent of cable television, the number of cinema-goers had plunged considerably. The 900 cinema halls in the state, with a capacity to seat one billion people in a year, saw barely 12.4 crore viewers in the past year.
Sources said a normal movie theatre in the state had 600-700 seats and the number of viewers exceeded 25 crore each year about two decades back but in the past one year, it had been observed that on an average, barely 90-95 viewers watched movies at cinema halls and most of the 6.35 lakh seats remained vacant all the time.
In Agra alone, where movie theatres were the major crowd pullers about a decade back when there were no other "attractions" in the town, 22 theatres have shut down and another is on the verge of closure leaving just 29 theatres and last year, these movie halls managed to pull just over 2.5 lakh viewers against their total capacity of seating 3.91 crore in a year.
About 250 cinema halls had either shut down or were on the verge of closure, but permission had not been granted to the owners of these theatres to utilize this 2000 sq yard of prime theatre land for commercial activities and as a result, all over the state, this land was lying completely waste, sometimes on sites that could fetch several crores of rupees to the cash-strapped cinema hall owners.
While earlier, movie theatre owners had been given the option of opening multiplexes on this land, the restriction of having at least 4000 sq yards of land for building a multiplex resulted in the failure of this scheme as most cinema halls were constructed on 2000 sq. yards of land that did not fulfill the requirements laid down by the government for multiplexes.
Talking to Business Standard, Mohan Swaroop, Commissioner Entertainment, UP said to devise a way out of this problem, the state government had now decided to allow the owners of the movie theatres that have been shut down, to demolish the theatre and construct a commercial complex in its place, leaving minimum space at any floor of the complex for a 300 seat mini-theatre to ensure that the land that had been allotted to the movie theatre owners by the government for popular entertainment, continues to serve that purpose.
According to sources in the UP entertainment department, over the past decade, with the advent of cable television, the number of cinema-goers had plunged considerably. The 900 cinema halls in the state, with a capacity to seat one billion people in a year, saw barely 12.4 crore viewers in the past year.
Sources said a normal movie theatre in the state had 600-700 seats and the number of viewers exceeded 25 crore each year about two decades back but in the past one year, it had been observed that on an average, barely 90-95 viewers watched movies at cinema halls and most of the 6.35 lakh seats remained vacant all the time.
In Agra alone, where movie theatres were the major crowd pullers about a decade back when there were no other "attractions" in the town, 22 theatres have shut down and another is on the verge of closure leaving just 29 theatres and last year, these movie halls managed to pull just over 2.5 lakh viewers against their total capacity of seating 3.91 crore in a year.
About 250 cinema halls had either shut down or were on the verge of closure, but permission had not been granted to the owners of these theatres to utilize this 2000 sq yard of prime theatre land for commercial activities and as a result, all over the state, this land was lying completely waste, sometimes on sites that could fetch several crores of rupees to the cash-strapped cinema hall owners.
While earlier, movie theatre owners had been given the option of opening multiplexes on this land, the restriction of having at least 4000 sq yards of land for building a multiplex resulted in the failure of this scheme as most cinema halls were constructed on 2000 sq. yards of land that did not fulfill the requirements laid down by the government for multiplexes.
Talking to Business Standard, Mohan Swaroop, Commissioner Entertainment, UP said to devise a way out of this problem, the state government had now decided to allow the owners of the movie theatres that have been shut down, to demolish the theatre and construct a commercial complex in its place, leaving minimum space at any floor of the complex for a 300 seat mini-theatre to ensure that the land that had been allotted to the movie theatre owners by the government for popular entertainment, continues to serve that purpose.
Comments