T'puram: Pay more to watch movies in theatre

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Watching a movie on the big screen would soon become dearer by a few bucks. The City Corporation has given its nod to the theatre owners’ plea to hike ticket rates. The Council meeting held on Monday passed the official agenda to allow five theatres to increase their rates with effect from March 23. With this, movie buffs will have to shell out extra money for watching films in Sree Padmanabha, Kripa, Dhanya, Remya and Krishna, Kazhakkoottam. While Kripa, Dhanya, Remya and Krishna will increase rates by ` 10, Sree Padmanabha will collect ` 20 more for its balcony and reserved seats.  The official agenda said that the theatre owners had been demanding a hike to tide over the crisis for sometime now. The theatres which have done the maintenance works are the ones who have been asked to go ahead and hike their ticket rates.  The balcony rate in Kripa, Dhanya, Remya and Krishna, Kazhakkoottam, will now be ` 60 and the reserved first class rate would be ` 50. While in Sree Padmanabha, this would be ` 70 and ` 60 respectively.Solar City ProjectThe Corporation has decided to form a solar city cell to prepare a master plan for the Centrally-sponsored scheme ‘Solar city.’ As a first step, it will organise a meeting to throw ideas and collect opinions from experts in the field at a meeting to be held on March 28.  The solar city project has selected many cities in the country to shift to solar energy as part of energy conservation projects. Under the project, 10 years from now, Thiruvananthapuram would shift to a complete solar city. The main step in the project is to form an energy conservation plan. The Centre has set aside ` 50 lakh for the project and the Corporation will have to put in its bit.  On March 28, there will be a meeting of the Grameena Arogya Mission where the councillors will be briefed on its various schemes.