MUMBAI: After announcing a slate of films recently, Times Group’s film production subsidiary Mirchi Movies has now launched a hunt for scriptwriters.

As per Mirchi Movies, there is a dearth of good and original writing talent in Bollywood. Through a national story hunt, the production house will bring writers at large to potentially see their story ideas converted into feature films.

Entries in English or Hindi will be accepted. The first three short listed stories will get converted into screenplays and ultimately into feature films.

The hunt is being conducted across 20 cities and towns – Mumbai, Delhi, Calcutta, Chennia, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Ahmedabad, Nagpur, Pune, Jaipur, Surat, Baroda, Kanpur, Indore, Bhopal, Coimbatorie, Lucknow, Vaizag, Raipur and Trivandrum.

Speaking to Businessofcinema.com, Mirchi Movies COO Munish Purii says, "We are excited on the Mirchi Movies Story Hunt initiative. The hunt kicks off on 1 April and entries will be accepted until 30 April. Results will be announced in June 2008. A select number of top story ideas will be converted into screenplays and some of these screenplays might be made into feature films."

The proposed panel of judges is likely to include Aziz Mirza and Kamlesh Pandey. The best three stories selected by the judges would get a cash reward price of Rs 10 lakhs, Rs 5 lakhs and Rs 3 lakhs respectively.