After much fanfare, now govt tells HC: No decision yet on Film City’s location

Four months after the Uttar Pradesh government released the blueprint for the proposed Film City over 1,000 acres along the Yamuna Expressway, it informed the Allahabad high court on Thursday that it had not yet decided on the project’s location.

The reply comes after a public interest litigation (PIL) was filed before the court seeking a stay on the proposed project in Gautam Budh Nagar.

Appearing on behalf of the state government, lawyer Siddharth Dhawan apprised the court that, as of now, there was only a proposal for building the film city in Noida.

Reports have been sought regarding availability of land and other facilities, which are being examined, therefore, the petition at this stage is premature, said Dhawan.

The petitioner, Kalakaar Association of Lucknow, then withdrew the PIL.

“As we have not entered into merits of the controversy in view of the statements made on behalf of state and opposite party, all pleas are open for being raised at the appropriate stage, if a cause exists,” said the two-judge bench of Justices Rajan Roy and Saurabh Lavania, while dismissing the petition.

The planned project was a prestigious projects of the Yogi Adityanath government with an aim to develop the state as an alternative base to the Hindi film industry based at Mumbai.

Yamuna Expressway industrial authority (Yeida) had earmarked land in Sector 21 along the Yamuna Expressway for the project.

During the presentation of the blueprint, chief minister Adityanath had said,”We intend to provide a high capacity, world class data centre along with all pre-production and post-production infrastructure, processing labs, VFX and digital studios of international level in this zone.”

Yeida officials could not be reached for comment on the issue.