And then, while nobody cared to divulge the details, it apparently got lost in the loops of local and departmental permissions, with the then railways minister delivering a memorable punch line to close the topic: "At the end of the day, Indian railways is bigger than Bond!" With that summing up the mindset of the administration, it's no surprise that despite " A Mighty Heart" , " Slumdog Millionaire ", " The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel ", or the latest Katherine Bigelow film on the Osama kill, India sees far fewer global projects than it could, since the red tape scares off the faint-hearted. And the plethora of authorities that have to be handled - customs, police, local administration, religious boards, railways, the archaeological survey, etc - can put off anyone, not just those unfamiliar with India's paperwork.

The other extreme of the Railways' stance is a very local, non-international project, which saw a frustrated Arshad Warsi tweeting, after a day's shooting - with all requisite permissions - at the Qutub Minar last November: "Finished the song shoot. Qutub Minar authorities made it as difficult for us as they could.

Literally paid bribe for every shot." But nightmarish concerns on filmmaking here, raised by many international filmmakers when interacting with Indian representatives at Cannes recently, may have a solution in the offing: A national Film Commission that works as a single window for global filmmakers looking to step into Indian waters.

After listening to unhappy experiences of global filmmakers at Cannes, Information and Broadcasting (I&B) secretary Uday Kumar Varma candidly listed out a fatiguing list of about 14 ministries and departments that a filmmaker could have to go to to take permission for shooting in India, and told them that India understands the need to simplify that, and then proposed the Commission as a solution. So how does a Film Commission help? "The idea is to create a single agency where all requests could be received and processed.

Instead of going to ten agencies separately, filmmakers could come to one agency that would handle things," says Varma. A specialised office would be housed in the I&B Ministry's office, Varma explains, and would function as the single agency for processing requests from international and domestic filmmakers.

It'll include representatives from all concerned ministries and agencies so the clearances given are final. But will a multiple-department agency give speedy reverts, given what we know of government processes? "We are willing to start with an imperfect structure which will evolve over time to achieve greater efficiency," Varma says, "The good thing is that there's a consensus; nobody is disputing the need to set up a Film Commission, and the need to set it up as soon as possible.

The structural part of the FC is dependent on several ministries, so it'll take us some time to put this together, but by the time we're back at Cannes next year, we hope to have it in place." Varma adds, "We are also going to launch a website which will provide, in as much detail as is possible, all that a filmmaker needs to know before starting on a project in India.

We'd want to avoid having people go to offices physically to fill forms, to submit fees. And we'd want to have a Facebook account to enable us to get feedback from the film fraternity globally.

" The Hollywood Reporter says that just last week, The California Film Commission received a record 322 applications "for a share of the $100 million or more in funding available annually through the state's Film & Television Tax Credit Program", of which 28 have been selected to receive tax credits. Ergo, the California Film Commission has a $100 million budget just to offer rebates and incentives to projects shot there.

A Khaleej Times report talks about attracting Indian films, with the local grapevine saying that the bulk of the SRK-Farah project, "Happy New Year", will be shot in Dubai, and states that "Promoting Dubai as a shooting location and encouraging international films to be made here is one of the proclaimed goals of the newly announced Dubai Film & TV Commission.' As Film Commissions elsewhere vie to attract cinema, including Indian, the idea's not a day too soon for the country that produces the largest volume of cinema in the world (less)