A Costly Extravaganza

Emperor rules

Would the Maquinez Palace at the Old GMC precinct in Campal, Panjim have been better off if the Entertainment Society of Goa had simply pawned it off to that Dilli mall wallah. Many think so. Now look what you have to put up with; a luxurious, just-can’t afford, tamasha called International Film Festival of India. And by the way, four years down the line, it has not only not become the Cannes of India but it’s not even getting there. The star power went out of the festival because of the criticism that the festival could not attract A-listers, but that was supposed to be replaced by meaningful cinema and premieres of much-looked-forward to films. But that ain’t happening by a long shot.

It’s just an expensive extravaganza. Costly because it cost Rs 10,35,92,909 in 2005-06, Rs 14,63,01,925 in 2006-07 and Rs 11,65,55,195 in 2007-08… that’s a humungous Rs 36,64,50,029. Only in Goa, did you say? But you can’t blame the Entertainment Society of Goa for this wasteful expenditure - it’s the emperors who rule from the Secretariat on the hill that decide how tax money is to be wasted. It’s just that only the ESG (being in the front line) gets the stick from us. I said wasteful, because even ESG admitted IFFI did not have the required brand image for the event management company to be able to get enough sponsorships of the money kind. Though it must be said Alternate Brand Solutions Ltd of the Times Group did get paid a whopping Rs 4,49,440 and Rs 1,55,98,200 as organizational expenses. There are the beneficiaries of course like the two 5-Star hotels that skim off the cream, so to speak, year in and year out. For example, in 2005-06 a total of Rs 2,12,97,010 was spent on boarding and lodging (in all hotels), in 2006-07 a total of Rs 1,04,62,560 was incurred and in 2007-08 the figure was Rs 1,23,37,876 (see detailed boarding/lodging figures below.)

Organizational Expenses -1
Inox Leisure Ltd - Rs 6,27,853
Goa Heritage Action Group - Rs 40,000
Universal Studios - Rs 86,240
Felicitation of film personalities MIB
(Ministry for Information and Broadcasting) - Rs 2,10,593
Interpreters - Rs 5,000
Miscellaneous expenses - Rs 14,056
Dinner/Stay for Union Minister of State (MoS, GoI) - Rs 45,041
Alternate Brand Solutions Ltd (function) - Rs 4,49,440
IFFI Guide –Arnab Banerjee - Rs 15,000
Hiring TVs for ticketing centre - Rs 1,15,000
Hire of walkie-talkies - Rs 26,100
Hire of computers - Rs 1,73,600
Honorarium for festival executives - Rs 2,35,1550
Total: Rs 41,59,473


Boarding/Lodging -2
Panaji Residency - Rs 17,636
Bawa International - Rs 7,35,716
Cidade de Goa - Rs 60,10,291
Aury Mendes Representations -Rs 1,02,741
Hotel Ashok - Rs 39,110
Circuit House - Rs 200
Goa Marriott – Rs 24,54,56
Hotel Campal – Rs 7,560
Class City Investments – Rs 6,62,549
JW Marriott – Rs 26,169
Total: Rs 78,47,428

This was the way in which the RTI information was handed over to me, so I simply can’t help you decipher what some of the non-hotel names represent. Your guess is as good as mine, they are hotels all right, and I suspect trying hard to keep the tax man at bay.

Exp-IFFI TV -3
Whistling Woods International - Rs 13,29,699
Ginger Hotels – Rs 3,71,451
Viegas Vision – Rs 22,000
Vinay Electricals – Rs 6,000
Total: Rs 17,29,150
Export Film Bazaar -4
Goa Marriott – Rs 11,54,861
AVI Audio Visuals – Rs 6,81,014
Ranjan Kamath – Rs 2,00,000
Total: Rs 20,35,875

There are in all 11 expense overheads incurred by IFFI. What you have seen are just four of them. Makes you wonder why successive governments compete to hold IFFI. Could it be for the benefit of the tourism industry? Looks like that. You wouldn’t be off the mark also if you wondered from the little evidence before, why appoint an event management agency to host IFFI if you must pay festival executives a princely sum of Rs 23,51,550 to do (from the generous payout) apparently a sizeable amount of the groundwork. Considering also, the groundwork covered in this column thus far is only worth Rs 1,57,71,926 of the Rs 6,73,12,814 spent to foist IFFI on you and me. And as I pointed out last week, Rs 1 crore from that was paid to Alternate Brand Solutions Ltd., Mumbai, a Times Group company that successfully bid and won the tender to organize the IFFI-2008.


(Feedback 6658606, 9763718501 lionroars.goa@gmail.com)