Tollywood eludes Vizag!

By SNV Sudhir

Visakhapatnam, June 26, 2014:  While Vizag has been pinning hopes of total Tollywood shift from Hyderabad, to city, which is expected to boost, local economy, and provide jobs to locals in the wake of state bifurcation, there are no signs of the same and a recent observation by the industry heavy weight, actor and producer Murali Mohan that the industry will not move to Vizag, has disappointed locals.

Vizag MP Kambhampati Haribabu and state HRD minister Ganta Srinivasa Rao, both have been pitching for Vizag as the new Tollywood destination and have plans to lobby hard for shifting Telugu film industry to Vizag. In fact they have earlier assured of holding a meeting with top honchos of Tollywood to motivate them to set up various facilities related to film Industry in Vizag, by explaining them the advantages of Vizag over Hyderabad.

Muralimohan said that it took around 20 years for the total Tollywood to shift from Chennai to Hyderabad and they were all only settling now. He also added, they can’t afford to undergo the same again for another 20 years to shift to Vizag.

Ever since the separate Telangana movement took steam from 2002 onwards, many Telugu film personalities started eying Vizag. As per highly reliable sources in the revenue department, many film personalities- Nagarjuna, Balakrishna, Muralimohan, Rajamouli, Puri Jagannath, Ramana Gogula, RP Patnaik, comedians Ali and MS Narayana have already bought huge chunks of lands with a foresight of Telugu film industry shifting to Vizag  from Hyderabad and to set up studios, other industry related facilities.

The favourite spots for them are Bheemili, sagar Nagar, Kapuluppada, Rushikonda. Last year during the inauguration of actor and film producer Murali Mohan’s business venture, he said that there will be rapid changes in Vizag in the coming five years and buying lands here.

Though there were reports that many Tollywood personalities, including former union minister, Chiranjeevi, bought large tracts of land in Vizag and planned to build film studios and other movie related facilities like dubbing studios, sound recording theathres,  but works on not even one studio or facility has begun until now.

“No doubt Vizag is the best and right destination for Telugu film industry. As far as my knowledge goes everybody is interested in coming to Vizag. We will very soon hold a meeting with the Industry heads,” said HRD minister, Ganta Srinivas Rao.

Already star producer amd movie mogul Ramanaidu has opened his studios on the beach road on a hilltop in the 100 acres of land allotted by the state government.