The Assam State Film (Finance and Development) Corporation Limited has planning to set up an archive and museum at Guwahati ever since the National Film Archives of India (NFAI), Pune, organised a Film Appreciation Course in Guwahati October last year.

With a motive to build a vault on the lines of the NFAI, Bobbita Sharma, chairman, Assam State Film (Finance and Development) Corporation Limited had visited NFAI last year.

But, the NFAI authorities do not seem to be happy about this idea.

"Our film preservation official went to Guwahati early this year and the team of engineers who developed our vaults are to be consulted. However, we should not decentralise the activity of preservation and storage since it is a very technical aspect requiring good manpower and infrastructure, They can send us the films, which are supposed to be stored,” said Vijay Jadhav, director, NFAI. He added, “I had strongly recommended them to send the films here since we have enough space. Nevertheless, we will provide full technical support in the interest of the films." he said .

Although still on paper there have been several supervisions by authorities from both sides.

While NFAI has a capacity of two lakh reels, the Assam State Film Corporation is planning to build a vault with a capacity of around 5,000 reels. Film Preservation Officer Kiran Dhiwar said, "They wanted the vault for storing the entire north east films. But they are now concentrating on Assam. We have given them the guidelines. They will also have to make multiple copies since storage can't be accessed frequently. If the storage is long term, there has to be restrictions on the use," he added.

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