India Cine Hub: NFDC's single window for film-shooting permits
Why in news: A PIB explainer of 22 September 2026 described the India Cine Hub's film permits and its expansion to live-event permissions, with nine venues onboarded.
The India Cine Hub is a single-window portal run by the National Film Development Corporation (NFDC), a public sector company under the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting. Indian and foreign creators use it for filming permissions, co-production approvals and film-visa help. On 22 September 2026, the government said it is being extended to live-event permissions.
Syllabus: GS3 · Indian Economy & Growth; Prelims · Current Affairs & IR; GS2 · Government Policies
In short
The India Cine Hub, a National Film Development Corporation portal under the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, offers one window for shooting permits that Ministries and States still grant.
The India Cine Hub's worth rests on federal cooperation: one window helps only if every State joins and decides on time.
Why it matters
Take a foreign producer who wants to shoot in Ladakh and Rajasthan. Without a single window, the crew would approach each State or Union Territory, the local police, forest officials and, for a centrally protected monument, the Archaeological Survey of India, one after another. With one portal routing the application to each authority, the crew deals with one window, and its spending on hotels, crews and local vendors reaches the places filmed. The government cites film tourism as a gain: after 3 Idiots, tourist arrivals in Ladakh rose 2.4-fold, according to an EY-FICCI report. The larger issue is ease of doing business in a federal system, where the States keep the power to permit and the Centre coordinates.
Prelims pointers
- National Film Development Corporation (NFDC): set up in 1975; a public sector company under the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting; mandate to promote and develop Indian cinema.
- Merged into NFDC: Films Division (1948, documentaries), Children's Film Society, India (1955), National Film Archive of India (1964, Pune) and Directorate of Film Festivals (1973).
- Central Board of Film Certification: statutory body under the Cinematograph Act, 1952 that certifies films for public exhibition; a different body from NFDC.
- International Film Festival of India (IFFI): first held in 1952; held in Goa since 2004; NFDC's Film Bazaar, a co-production and distribution market, runs alongside it.
- Archaeological Survey of India (Ministry of Culture) licenses filming at centrally protected monuments under the Ancient Monuments and Archaeological Sites and Remains Act, 1958.
- Film cities: Ramoji Film City, Hyderabad (Telangana); Dadasaheb Phalke Chitranagari, Goregaon, Mumbai (Maharashtra); Noida Film City (Uttar Pradesh).
- Dadasaheb Phalke made Raja Harishchandra (1913), regarded as India's first full-length feature film; Mumbai's Film City is named after him.
Practise a UPSC-style question
With reference to the National Film Development Corporation (NFDC), consider the following statements:
1. It was set up as a statutory body under the Cinematograph Act, 1952.
2. It is a public sector company under the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting.
Which of the statements given above is/are correct?
- (a) 1 only
- (b) 2 only
- (c) Both 1 and 2
- (d) Neither 1 nor 2
Show the answer
Answer: (b) 2 only
1 is incorrect: NFDC was set up by the Union Government in 1975 as a company; the statutory body under the Cinematograph Act, 1952 is the Central Board of Film Certification, which certifies films. 2 is correct: NFDC is a public sector company under the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, and it runs the India Cine Hub.
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