CR earns ₹1 cr. from film shoots in FY18

The Central Railway (CR) earned a little over ₹1 crore through film shoots between April 2017 and March 2018 with the Alia Bhatt and Ranveer Singh-starrer Gully Boy bringing in ₹15.32 lakh, the highest among all the shoots in the year.

At least 15 shoots took place across stations in Central Railway, which included 12 feature films, an advertising film for Pepsi, a web series and a documentary. While the number of shoots were the same in 2016-17, the earnings have seen a 36% jump from 2016-17, when it earned around ₹74 lakh.

Chief Public Relations Officer, CR, Sunil Udasi, said, “The processing time of applications has reduced to nearly half due to the single window system. Earlier it used to take around 15 days, but it now takes around seven days if there is a requirement for rolling stock. If they only require the station, applications are processed in three to four days.”

Gully Boy saw a two-day shoot at the Wadi Bunder yard in January. The site was also used by the Netflix series Sacred Games. Apta continued to be favoured by filmmakers, with four films shot there last year.

The station has been featured in numerous Bollywood blockbusters, notably Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge and Baaghi. A three-day shoot at Wathar for an ad film brought in ₹14.55 lakh, the second highest source of revenue.

Bengali film Kabir was also shot at Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Terminus (CSMT) and the makers of the film hired a coach on the Shalimar Express that runs between Lokmanya Tilak Terminus (LTT) and Howrah. LTT will also feature in the Discovery series Night Train, while Reay Road station and the Kurla car shed will be part of a biopic on Saadat Hasan Manto.