The 72nd National Film Awards will be presented at Ekta Nagar in Narmada district on 22 September, with President Droupadi Murmu handing over the honours. The venue change takes the ceremony out of Delhi, where Vigyan Bhavan has staged most editions since the awards began in 1954.
Reports differ on how complete a break this is. Deccan Chronicle described it as the first time in 72 years that the ceremony leaves the capital, while Vibes of India noted an earlier exception, a 1970 ceremony held in Chennai. Either way, no film award of this standing has been staged in Gujarat before.
Why Ekta Nagar
Ekta Nagar, the settlement built around the Statue of Unity near the Sardar Sarovar dam, has spent the years since 2018 acquiring the equipment of a conference town: tent-city accommodation, an arrival plaza sized for coach traffic, its own railway station and a hotel cluster. Gujarat already routes state functions and the annual Rashtriya Ekta Diwas events through it.
The footfall explains the confidence. Visitors to the Statue of Unity climbed from 34.29 lakh in 2021 to 41.32 lakh in 2022 and 51.20 lakh in 2023, before crossing 58 lakh in 2024, according to figures reported by DeshGujarat. That is a large annual audience for a site the state built from scratch on the Narmada, and it gives Gujarat a basis for pitching Ekta Nagar as more than a monument.
What it means for the district
For residents of Kevadia, Garudeshwar and the villages along the reservoir, a one-day national ceremony is worth less than what it signals. Gujarat Tourism has been trying to convert Ekta Nagar from a monument that people see in four hours into a place where they stay two nights, because day-trippers spend on tickets and little else. A televised awards night gives the state a case to make to conference organisers and film units who currently default to Mumbai, Delhi or Goa.
The near-term effects are narrow. Hotel and homestay operators in Narmada district get one weekend of premium rates. Transport and catering contracts go mostly to Vadodara and Ahmedabad firms, since Narmada has little organised events capacity of its own. Security arrangements for a presidential visit will close some approach roads for a day or two.
There is also a working question about access. Ekta Nagar sits about 90 km from Vadodara and roughly 200 km from Ahmedabad airport. Rail links improved once the town got its own station, but the film industry’s guest list travels through Mumbai, and the last leg remains a road transfer. If the state wants repeat business from this sector, that gap is what it has to close.
The awards themselves
The winners were announced earlier. ‘Article 370’ takes Best Feature Film and Yami Gautam Best Actress; Mammootty and Kartik Aaryan share Best Actor for ‘Bramayugam’ and ‘Chandu Champion’; Randeep Hooda wins Best Debut Director for ‘Swatantrya Veer Savarkar’; ‘Kalki 2898 AD’ is named Best Popular Film. Gujarati cinema, which the state has subsidised through a dedicated film policy for over a decade, does not feature in the headline categories.
What to watch
Two things will show whether this becomes a pattern or stays a one-off. First, whether the Union information and broadcasting ministry rotates the 73rd edition to another non-Delhi venue or returns to Vigyan Bhavan. Second, whether Gujarat converts the exposure into a working film-facilitation office, the kind Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh use to attract shoots. Hosting a ceremony is easier than hosting an industry.
Sources: Deccan Chronicle, Vibes of India, DeshGujarat
This report was written with AI assistance from the publicly reported sources linked here; each fact was cross-checked against at least two of them.