Soni promises national importance tag for SRFTI

KOLKATA: The two state-owned film institutes in the country - Film & Television Institute of India (FTII) in Pune and Satyajit Ray Film & Television Institute (SRFTI) in Kolkata - will be made institutes of national importance, enabling the two institutes to obtain more funds and its students to sport a bigger brand.
While FTII, which has functioned professionally since 1960 and churned out quality students, has earned itself the reputation of being one of the top cine institutes in Asia, administrative problems have dogged SRFTI since inception in 1992, stunting its growth.That only the third convocation of a two-decade-old institute was held on Friday is a measure of SRFTI's turbulent record.
Setting the unremarkable past aside, Union minister for information and broadcasting Ambika Soni, the chief guest at the convocation, said the government would soon initiate the process of upgrading the institutes to cater to the ever-increasing, highly-skilled and specialized manpower requirement of the film and TV industry.
"Measures are being taken to declare FTII and SRFTI institutions of national importance through an Act of the Parliament," she said. On being quizzed if the bill would be tabled in the winter session, Soni declined to offer a time frame. "I may want to bring it during the next parliament session. But there are lots of pending bills with the parliamentary affairs minister."
Students though, voiced their discontent over the 'mismanagement' and demanded full-time senior functionaries. Tamal Chakraborty, one of the pass-outs who received his diploma on Friday, was severely critical of the management. "Here, nobody takes care of the syllabus. Courses do not finish on time. The curtailment of syllabus hurts students," he pointed out.
Soni said she had heard the grievances and would go through them in detail later. Sunny Lahiri, general secretary of the apolitical SRFTI Students' Union, said members would go to Delhi soon to discuss the problems with the minister.
Earlier in the day when Soni met chief minister Mamata Banerjee at the state secretariat, the latter told her she had plans for a better connect between SRFTI and the film industry in Bengal and would send the proposal through minister of state for information and broadcasting, C M Jatua.
A Rs 45-crore facility is currently under construction on SRFTI's 33-acre campus to accommodate new courses on animation and production management for the next academic year. Also on the anvil is a separate TV wing, for better exposure to television.
which will come up in the next four-five years. "This Rs 65-crore facility will have two floors that will be used by both students and the industry and generate revenue for the institute," Soni said.
ENDS