NEW DELHI: The Delhi-based National School of Drama, which has formed the training ground for some of the best television and film personalities, is to get five regional centres in different parts of the country, Parliament has been told.

This follows the recommendations made by the Broad Based Committee for opening up of five regional centres across the country.

The NSD Society proposes to establish one regional centre each at Kolkata, Mumbai/Goa, Jammu and Kashmir, and the North-East besides upgrading the existing Regional Resource Centre (RRC) at Bengaluru to become a full-fledged regional centre.

Culture Minister Mahesh Sharma said these regional centres are to be established in consultation with the concerned State Governments who were required to provide accommodation for the purpose.

So far, only Karnataka has allotted land for the purpose at Bengaluru. NSD has started one year teaching training programme in the Bengaluru Chapter commencing from academic session 2014-15.

In addition, under consolidation of Out-reach Programme in the North-East Region, NSD has opened its Centres in Sikkim and Tripura. 

Several actors like Om Puri, Naseeruddin Shah, Shabana Azmi, Nadira Babbar, Kulbhushan Kharbanda and others and filmmakers like M S Sathyu have made major contributions to the NSD, many of them beginning their careers here.