A view of Apsara Cinema. Picture by UB Photos

Oct. 25: Cinema owners in the city have knocked Dispur?s doors to get loans from financial institutions and banks to improve the infrastructure of their halls.

Increasing dip in business has forced the owners of seven leading cinemas to look for loans to convert their halls on the lines of swanky multiplexes in the metros to attract more cinephiles. A militant ban on screening of Hindi movies has also affected the interest of hall owners.

Sources in the Eastern India Motion Pictures Association (Eimpa) said owners of leading cinemas like Apsara, Anuradha and Pragjyotish recently met chief minister Tarun Gogoi and submitted proposals to make the halls more attractive for moviegoers.

?There is an urgent need to make the halls more attractive like setting up swanky restaurants, cyber cafes, beauty parlours, games corridor in the lines of multiplexes. For this, we need funds and this is simply not possible under the present circumstances,? Phani Sarmah, owner of Anuradha Cinema, said.

According to the cinema owners, the banks and financial institutions are not eager to extend financial assistance for renovation and modernisation of the halls.

The owner of a leading cinema said the State Bank of India (SBI) had cited reasons like ?insecurity? for not granting loans when he approached the bank.

?Banks and financial institutions have developed an idea that militants would target the halls having modern facilities. The financiers do not want to take any risk,? he added.

The sources said some of the hall owners have also made up their mind to go for setting up mini halls instead of big ones in case the banks extend loans.

The hall owners said setting up mini halls would be a financially viable proposition.

There are 12 cinemas in the city. Of these, six were making moderate profits while the rest were just pulling through.

Since the militants? ban on November 15, 2003, not a single hall has been able to display the ?housefull? signboard.

Almost all major Hindi films are released in the city simultaneously with other major cities.

All India hits like Main Hoon Naa and Kal Ho Naa Ho did moderate business in the city.

Anupama Cinema at Maligaon was closed down in the middle of last year because of persisting loss.

The hall has now been converted into a market complex.

Another hall ? Rupayan Cinema ? was turned into a posh market complex at the busy Fancy Bazar area two years back.

It is not that the halls were better off before the ban. The Guwahati-based Eimpa, which controls distribution of films in the region, said the ban had given a blow to the industry, which was already reeling under piracy.

An official of the Sadow Asom Bolsobi Karmi Santha ? the apex body of cinema workers in the state ? said if the business of the halls does not improve, there would be no way out but to close the cinemas.

This will effectively render about 3,000 cine-workers in the city jobless.