India / Greater Noida Authority offers night safari project land for film city

LUCKNOW: The Greater Noida Authority (GNA) has proposed to develop the ambitious ‎film city project announced by the CM Yogi Adityanath on the land which was earlier touted to be developed as India’s first Night Safari.

The Night Safari project was scrapped by the Greater Noida Authority on Sunday.

According to Additional Chief Secretary (ACS), Home, Awanish Awasthi, CM Yogi would be discussing the ‘Film City’ project with a number of well-known actors, directors, singers, and others virtually on Tuesday evening. 

The Greater Noida Authority is set to appraise the UP government about the availability of 550 acres land for this purpose. The authority is likely to urge the state authorities to give necessary approvals so that work on the could be initiated at the earliest.

On scrapping of the Night Safari project, the senior officials of the Greater Noida Authority claimed that it was not viable due to a number of environmental issues involved.

The Night Safari project, conceptualised in the previous regime, had to be developed by 2017. Between 2012 and 2017, the UP government completed only the paperwork for it, but could not start work on the ground.

“We have now decided to develop a Film City on 550 acres of land earlier earmarked for the Night Safari. We have prepared a proposal to be sent to the government for necessary approvals,” said Narendra Bhooshan, chief executive officer of the Greater Noida Authority. Moreover, there seems to be a race among various development authorities in the NCR to lap the ambitious project.

If the sources are to be believed, Yamuna Expressway Industrial Development Authority (YEIDA) chief executive officer Arun Vir Singh has also written to the UP government about 500 acres land which is ready and earmarked for a Film City in Sector 21 located along the 165-km Yamuna Expressway.

The UP CM had announced on Friday to set up “country’s biggest and most impressive film city” either in Noida, Greater Noida, or Yamuna Expressway to create opportunities in the state. The CM had directed the respective authorities to hunt a land for the project at the earliest.

As per the sources in the Greater Noida Authority, the officials were prompted to offer ready land for the Film City because neighbouring Noida hardly had land left to be allotted for a huge project and Yamuna Expressway was not yet developed enough to house such a facility.

However, YEIDA has been making efforts to set up a Film City for quite some time but its efforts had not yielded any results so far.