With the state government getting tough on public smoking and littering on Delhi’s streets, Khanna will harness the potential of animated films in spreading awareness about social ills. The Raj Niwas plans to start a programme through which one-minute long animated films will be screened at all movie halls in the city. Apart from the issues of smoking and littering, these films will also look at graver concerns like female foeticide.

The protagonist of an anti-smoking film is 30-something Jeff, who sports on his T-shirt his macho image — “I Can Do It Better”. He bounces on the screen and proceeds to flick open a packet of cigarettes in true Rajnikanth style. The moment he starts smoking, the warning “Cigarette Smoking Is Injurious To Health” flashes neon red on the pack. Jeff kicks the packet offstage, but another, this time of a different brand, appears. In no time, Jeff is buried under a pile of cigarettes, with images of clogged and black lungs floating around.

Khanna is looking at employing Delhi-based animation company Pumpkin to make the films. The company, also an academy of digital arts that trains in animation-making and has already explored socially-relevant themes, has as its chairman and director Hardeep Singh Gill. Gill said, “I played this anti-smoking clip before the L-G today. It had won a competition in 2005. Khanna seemed to be impressed.” Gill has made another short animated film on female foeticide. It was provoked by a feature he caught on a news channel — on a newborn girl being thrown in a lake in Udaipur.

“The animation industry in India does not focus on social issues. Most projects are for firms abroad. I wanted to work on issues affecting our country,” Gill said. His first project, however, was a fully-animated version of the song Mere paas aao, mere dosto, ek kissa suno — from the Amitabh Bachchan starrer Mr Natwarlal. Gill said it was the first-ever, fully animated 3D song made in the country.

At present, Gill is working on a short feature on littering and a film on child molestation for Raj Niwas. He said Khanna has already told him to start work on another “pertinent issue”.

Senior officials at Raj Niwas said these films will also get exposure at public places which have screens. Wing Commander Ranjan Mukherjee said, “We might also give the films to the Delhi government as well as municipality schools, to be shown to children.”