Diksha Jain had completed her Bachelor’s degree in mass communication from Ranchi’s renowned St Xavier’s college with big ambitions to make a name in the film industry. She reached Mumbai and also got internship opportunity but also witnessed harsh reality there after. The ordeal of budding and aspiring filmmaker from Jharkhand is not the lone one.
Avenues for young talents from the State despite getting initial lift in the form of courses available are not opening as expected. In the absence of suitable platform in the state to showcases their talent they are forced to move Mumbai to approach different production houses to struggling.
“My dream is to become a popular director like Farah Khan and Zoya Akhtar but it is very difficult to achieve what we dream. In Mumbai, people turn a deaf ear when people like us knock them for help. One year I wasted in Ranchi with the hope of getting place in Jhaullywood. Irony is that people working in Jhaullywood themselves face end number of problems. I approached to many people for job but no avail and finally decided to move to Mumbai as it was my last hope,” said Jain.
Echoing her, another budding Director Rishi Kumar said, “Scope for directors in Jharkhand is very less. We do not have a good production house here. Moreover, there is no film city.”
In the year 2012 former Chief Minister Arjun Munda mooted the plan to make a film city at Patratu. For this he ordered the concerned department to create a corpus fund of Rs 10 lakh but the plan remained on paper only. Work culture and bureaucratic red-tapism have put brakes on the project and is still buried in the files.
Blaming political instability as a prime reason for delay Human Resource Department (HRD) Principal Secretary KVidhyasagar said, “Due to shaky politics the plan went out of the priority list. I will look into the matter and will try to resume it again.”
Meanwhile, people from film fraternity in Jharkhand also feel that film city in Ranchi is the need of the hour. Jharkhand famous director Megnath Mahto said, “Students of Jharkhand are extremely talented. If they are get fair chance they can beat country’s leading directors. Many people fail to go to Mumbai to showcase their talent as a result of which precious gems remains buried in coal mines. If we have a film city here, then no child will go to Mumbai to make their dream-come-true.”