The Central Railway’s revenue in the first quarter this year is nearly as much as its entire earnings of the last fiscal year. The steep rise in earnings can be attributed to the sudden spurt of film shootings in CR stations this year. This has resulted in the CR earning an unprecedented 91 lakh in just one quarter. In the last fiscal year, CR’s total earnings was `1.07 crore and the same quarter last year saw earnings of just `17 lakh.
Since April this year, 10 films and advertisements have been shot at different locations of CR including films like Once Upon a Time in Mumbai Again, Gori Tere Pyar Mein, Dedh Ishqiya and Gunday. Even a short film for IPL-6 for the Mumbai Indians team was shot there.
Gunday, a Yashraj production, paid `9.63 lakh to CR for shooting at Wathar station near Pune this year. The other films and ads were shot at CST, Wadi bunder, Chunabhatti, Satara and Apta.
Railway authorities maintain that they first read the script and then only decide if a green signal is to be given for the shoot. “After reading the script if we find that the script or the movie will create a bad image of the railways, we reject it. We did not give the permissions to Ram Gopal Verma’s The Attacks of 26/11,” said A.K. Singh, PRO, CR.
“The trend is encouraging and we have identified a few more locations for film shootings at different places in our stations,” said chief PRO Atul Rane, adding, “We have opened a single window to give hassle-free clearance for the film shootings and this has yielded good response from production houses and filmmakers.”