Bollywood benefits for Central Rly

, means not only entertainment for the patrons, but also big bucks for the railways.

The Mumbai local trains have become a part and parcel of the Bollywood. Apart from the bucks, this also provides the railways with free publicity.

The railways charge Rs 10,000 per day when only the station is required. However, when the film demands trains it goes upto Rs 1 lakh a day. But the story does not end here. Before one goes for shots there has to be an insurance cover of Rs 5 crore and a bank guarantee of Rs 5 lakh.

The Central Railway (CR) has doubled its earnings from the films and advertisements in the last nine months compared with the proceeds last year.

"The earnings have gone up may be owing to increase in number of movies being produced. Since the technology has improved, films take considerably lesser time to be completed. Moreover, owing to time crunch film makers are taking nearby locations from the railways for shooting," said Sunil Jain, chief public relations officer, CR.

Jain said the increase in earnings was incidental and the Central Railways never made efforts for it. "When we get requests, we examine them and if they are feasible we provide our platforms and trains for the shots," said Jain.

The story is not the same for the Western railway (WR) and Konkan Railway (KR). Their earnings from film shootings dropped by 94 per cent and 86 per cent respectively.

The WR, which is quite known for movies such as Saathiya, Aankhein and Aks, earned more than Rs 15 lakh in 2004. It came down to mere Rs 84,000 in 2005. Last year the WR gave twelve shooting spots which declined to four this year. In case of the KR, the fall in the proceeds was from Rs 7 lakh in 2004 to less than a lakh this year.

The KR sources said the fall in the earnings was because no commercial film unit had used the rolling stocks. This year, till now, the shootings have been more or less on the railway stations.