After introducing a number of new trains, extending Metro Railway and modernising the Railway Sports Complex at Behala, Railway Minister Mamata Banerjee has now turned her generosity to Tollywood, which backed her during the Lok Sabha polls and in the string of rallies and programmes she held after that.

The Railways now plans to build a state-of-the-art film city on a 22-acre plot owned by it at Howrah, which will be thrown open to filmmakers on a commercial basis.

The land abuts the Hooghly and has all the ingredients needed for a film city — a small forest, dilapidated buildings and abandoned railway tracks. The land has been selected by the Heritage Committee of the Railways. Led by chairperson Saonli Mitra, the committee had visited the place twice.

“At present, filmmakers from Tollywood go to Ramoji Film City in Hyderabad or the film cities at Mumbai or Chennai. If we offer the facilities here in Kolkata, they do not have to go outside. And it will also serve as a source of revenue for the Railways,” Mitra told The Indian Express.

The Committee will finalise the project at its meeting scheduled for October 21. “We will take the advice of Rituporno Ghosh, who is also a member of the Heritage Committee,” Mitra said.

Other members of the committee include theatre personalities Bibhas Charaborty and Arpita Ghosh, and vocalist Ustad Rashid Khan, among others.

The Heritage Committee has other plans in the field of culture. While it is planning to set up a theatre academy, also at Howrah, it also has on mind a music academy to be headed by Ustad Rashid Khan.

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