MUMBAI: The National Film Development Corporation of India (NFDC) has got additional legs to support it financially. As part of the restructuring, the government has allowed the corporation, which is traditionally into funding meaningful movies, to release advertisements and publicity along the lines of DAVP (Directorate of Advertising and Visual Publicity).

“We will be doing the social awareness advertisements for television, radio, internet and theatres. We have started the process and already have clients like the Ministry of Health, Income Tax department and Ministry of Agriculture,” NFDC managing director Nina Gupta tells Indiantelevision.com.

NFDC‘s other catches include Department of Ayush, National Aids Control Organisation and National Disaster Management in India.

In its additional role, NFDC will be producing social adverts in audio visual formats. "We are already into film making, so it is a logical extension for us,” avers Gupta.

NFDC has accumulated losses of Rs 276.2 million as on 31 March 2009. The corporation gets an annual grant of Rs 65 million from the government.

Indiantelevision.com had earlier reported that Information and Broadcasting Minister Ambika Soni had urged all Union Ministries and state governments to give production work of documentaries and video spots of their states to NFDC.

NFDC has also gone through a rightsizing, offering a Voluntary Retirement Scheme (VRS) to 70 of its employees.