Jaya Bachchan, the wife of superstar Amitabh Bachchan, may have been a hit actress. But her tenure as head of the Uttar Pradesh Film Development Council has made many scriptwriters and filmmakers unhappy.

"Producers see no attraction in coming to Uttar Pradesh for making a film," bureaucrat-turned-producer K.D. Shorie told on telephone from Mumbai. "The council has been indifferent towards the needs of filmmakers."

Having been a member of the council when Shatrughan Sinha was its chairman until 2003, Shorie claimed: "We cleared and funded 44 films that were shot in Uttar Pradesh during that period."

The government had created the council in 1999 to promote filmmaking in the state. Jaya was appointed when the Mulayam Singh Yadav government came to power in 2003.

Yadav had announced that the council under Jaya's leadership would provide financial assistance to the tune of Rs.4 million to suitable film projects.

But even as the council received as many as over 200 scripts over this two-year period, not a single one could get approval.

Not a penny was given to anyone in two years even as the state imposed a levy of 50 paise on every cinema ticket that would go to a film development fund created to fund the council.

Said a senior official: "The film development fund ought to be having at least Rs.600-Rs.700 million by now."

Jaya makes no bones about it either.

"So what? I have only saved precious government money by not funding any bad film that was not worth making," she said during a visit here.

"Only three or four scripts were worth considering; the rest did not even fulfil the basic criterion of a script.

"What we received in the name of scripts was clichéd, with stereotyped characters and themes. There was nothing unique or fresh about them."

She evaded queries on why the council was not meeting periodically and why many of its high-profile members had not attended a single meeting in two years. As per norms, the council must meet every quarter.

The main grouse of scriptwriters and filmmakers is over the constitution of the script approval committee that does not have a single member from the state.

Committee members Vinay Shukla, Lekh Tandon and Kamlesh Pandey have all been handpicked by Jaya from Mumbai and have nothing to do with Uttar Pradesh.

Filmmaker Rakesh Kumar of "Yaarana" and "Mr. Natwarlal" fame said: "The standards laid down by Jaya Bachchan are too tall and far from attracting filmmakers to Uttar Pradesh. These would perhaps only discourage them from coming here."

Describing the film policy laid down by the previous Mayawati government as "far more filmmaker friendly", a young producer said: "The earlier policy offered 50-100 percent entertainment tax exemption on films shot largely in Uttar Pradesh. Besides, regional dialect films were made tax-free for one year.

"But if you look at the record of the past two years, only Amitabh Bachchan-starrers have been given tax exemption by the Mulayam government."