Allahabad: Education department gets ready to auction Film Centre equipment

PRAYAGRAJ: The iconic Film Centre in Praygaraj whose educational films introduced school children to achievements of luminaries like Mahatma Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru will lose a part of history as the education department gets ready to auction the studio’s equipment which has become obsolete over the years.
According to a letter dated September 1 and signed by director general (school education) Vijay Kiran Anand, the education department will auction some of the equipment which has been locked since 1990 and is now obsolete. TOI has a copy of the letter.
A three-member committee has been constituted and asked to file a status report, following which the auction could start. The committee includes director of State Institute of Education Technology, District Institute of Education Training principal, member secretary and principal of State Institute of Physical Training.
Located on MG Road in Civil Lines near CAV Inter College, the Film Centre was established in 1938 to make educational films during the British rule. Back then, it was the only Film Centre in northern India.
The centre was established to produce short educational films and used some of the best equipment available back then which included high quality cameras, trolleys, cranes and recording equipment. Some of the equipment used in the centre was imported from the US. However, the building was shut in 1990 after government orders.
The institution has launched films based on freedom fighters Mahatma Gandhi and Madan Mohan Malviya, former Prime Ministers Jawaharlal Nehru and Indira Gandhi, former President Rajendra Prasad and former vice-president Dr S Radhakrishnan.
The centre has rolled out films based on lives of poets like Maithilisharan Gupt, Sumitranandan Pant, Mahadevi Varma and Acharya Mahavir Prasad.