Soon, Centre to Release Short Movies on 12 Heritage Cities

New Delhi: Work done by the government in 12 heritage cities in the last four years will be shown through short movies prepared in coordination with the National Film Development Corporation of India (NFDC), an official said.

Under the National Heritage City Development and Augmentation Yojana (HRIDAY), Ajmer, Amaravati, Amritsar, Badami, Dwaraka, Gaya, Kanchipuram, Mathura, Puri, Varanasi, Velankanni and Warangal have been selected.

The official said that as per the plan, once the works are completed in these cities, an overall short movie will also be prepared in coordination with NFDC. The Housing and Urban Affairs ministry, which is mandated to implement the scheme, had launched HRIDAY in January 2015 with a focus on holistic development of heritage cities.

Although the duration of the scheme is four years completing in November this year, the ministry is likely to extend it as number of projects are underway in cities.

"The ministry has joined hands with NFDC to prepare 12 short movies on every individual city to showcase works done under HRIDAY. An overall short movie will also be prepared once all projects works are completed under the scheme," an official said.

HRIDAY aims at creating civic, tourism and informational infrastructure around heritage assets in order to provide citizens and tourists with an enhanced experience.

Official said that under HRIDAY, a total of 63 projects are being executed and out of these, 20 projects have already been completed while 10 to 15 projects are to complete in October this year. Projects are being executed with a total outlay of Rs 500 crore.

"Short movies are good mode of communication through which change in these cities after implementation of HRIDAY can be felt by people," he also said.

According to the ministry, various type of infrastructure projects undertaken in HRIDAY include road and accessibility to heritage sites, drinking water stations, street furniture, street lights, sanitation, drainage, information kiosks and urban renewal through upliftment of facades of heritage buildings, creation of heritage walks among others. For instance, SubhashUdyan in Ajmer city has witnessed a lot of change under the scheme, official added.