King Khan to start up Cricket academy

Bollywood actor and the owner of Kolkata Knight Riders, Shah Rukh Khan today met the chief minister, Mr Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee at Writers' Buildings and expressed interest in setting up a modern cricket academy in the city. In reply, the chief minister urged the actor to take some "initiatives" in the film production sector in the state.

Though both the chief minister and Shah Rukh refused to divulge the details of the meeting, officials who were present said though a lot of things were discussed, the main focus was on the cricket academy and the film industry in West Bengal.

A senior official said: "Shah Rukh proposed to set up a modern cricket academy in the state. The academy will be set up on the lines of Australian Cricket Academy in Melbourne. But the discussion was very informal as no formal proposal was submitted by Shah Rukh."
It was learnt that the owner of Kolkata Knight Riders showed interest in setting up the academy at Rajarhat. A formal proposal must be submitted before this could be finalised.

Officials also said the chief minister invited the Bollywood actor to invest in the film industry of the state especially in the production sector. Mr Bhattacharjee told Shah Rukh about the Kolkata Film Festival (KFF) and he invited Shah Rukh to attend the next KFF scheduled to be held in November.

In reply, Shah Rukh also said the state has a lot of talent in this sector. He told Mr Bhattacharjee that the cameraman of his film Chak De India was from Kolkata. He also mentioned if proper infrastructure could be developed here, local talents would have a better platform to prove their excellence. This segment of the meeting is considered to be important because the state government has already invited expression of interest from private partners to run West Bengal Film Development Corporation in a joint venture.