udhagamandalam for a town with a resident population of a lakh people ooty lacks a modern cinema hall the two old theatres that entertained a premultiplex generation continue to exist but are slowly falling apart due to lack of proper maintenance surprisingly these two are the only two private theatres in the entire nilgiris district that is home to over 7 lakh people it wasnt so bad always in the early 1980s around nine private theatres were operational and screening tamil and other regional movies the assembly rooms of course screened just english movies as a tradition over the years carnation blue mountain rohini theatre and atc theatres were converted into commercial complexes owners blamed the vcddvd boom for dwindling audiences and moved on to more profitable ventures there is not a single decent cinema theatre in ooty to watch films it is a sorry state said k revanth a college student the condition of the two theatres in the town is pathetic there is no maintenance at all one cant watch films at these theatres with family said b krishnan an old resident of ooty in the past the theatres were found well maintained also the movies that were screened and the crowd that watched them were decent he added admitting that the theatres are not well maintained rangarajan who runs liberty theatre told toi that with pirate cds of new movies available even before the release of the movie theatre business is no more viable in places like ooty of late the quality of audience has declined and they dont cooperate with us to keep the theatre clean we cant charge more than the prescribed rate for ticket which is not enough to provide better facilities in the hall he said there is a mismatch between investment and returns in the theatre business given the land price to build and maintain a small theatre with hitech facilities that will satisfy quality audiences is impossible in towns like ooty added rangarajan who used to run four halls in the town earlier on lease the taste of audiences too has changed rangarajan points out that small budget movies do not attract quality audiences as in the past whatever be the reason movie lovers in ooty are a distraught lot as they had to travel down to cities like coimbatore to watch oscarwinning global hits like avatar and even karnan when the old classic was rereleased in a digital format as theatres in ooty could not screen them