After disposing of the 165-year-old Great Eastern Hotel, the Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee government has now resolved to wash its hands of another ailing behemoth, the 17-year-old Rupayan Film Laboratory.

Chief secretary Amit Kiran Deb said on Monday that efforts were on to privatise Rupayan, which stands on five acres in Salt Lake?s Sector V, with assets worth over Rs 50 crore.

The government plans to retain a token 10 per cent stake after the privatisation.

?When we had set up Rupayan, the expectations had been different,? Deb explained. ?In the changed milieu, the government has no reason to be associated with film-making or operating hotels and restaurants. It must restrict itself to governance.?

A brainchild of Bhattacharjee, then information minister, Rupayan was set up in 1988 under the aegis of West Bengal Film Development Corporation. The idea was to promote ?meaningful cinema? and Rupayan had left its imprint on several films made by masters like Satyajit Ray, Shyam Benegal, Tapan Sinha and Mrinal Sen.

It has a state-of-the-art laboratory, with experts, and also facilities for editing, dubbing, sound recording and shooting.

Of 45-50 Bengali films canned each year, 25-30 are developed and edited at Rupayan.

Providing a peek into the government?s thinking, an official quoted the chief minister as having said: ?When I am insisting on abolishing or cutting down subsidies in critical sectors like transport and power, there is no justification for continuing the subsidy for Rupayan. Under the present circumstances, we should focus on improving infrastructure, education and health.?

Chief secretary Deb said the government wanted to complete the privatisation process in the next few months. ?We are looking at various models ? handing over Rupayan to a single bidder or having it broken up into units and offering them to several bidders.?

According to a reliable estimate, around Rs 1 crore is spent every year in paying the salaries of 70-odd employees and another Rs 25 lakh under various heads of expenditure. The laboratory does not earn more than Rs 30 lakh a year.

?We have taken several steps to boost business and cut costs, but Rupayan cannot be made profitable in the present set-up. The only option left is privatisation,? said state films development corporation managing director K.P. Pal.