Prachi was founded by Jitendra Basu. A student of Presidency College, he had an MSc and LLB degree too, but he never took to practicing law. Rather, his interest was sports and movies. Jitendra had a printing press that brought out a magazine called Sports and Screen. He also had three cinemas ' Prachi, Sushil and Bharati -- in Varanasi. Rangmahal in Kolkata too was owned by Jitendra before it was sold off. Jitendra had opened Prachi in Kolkata bang opposite the Campbell Medical College (now NRS). The cinema was inaugurated in 1948 on Janmashtami. Kolkata's then mayor Sudhirchandra Roychowdhury had inaugurated it. BN Sircar, Debaki Basu, Bimal Roy, Premankur Aatharti, Raichand Baral, Goshtho Pal, Birendrakrishna Bhadra, Phani Pal and Modhu Bose were also present on the occasion. A concert with Hemanta Mukhopadhyay was also part of the inaugural event. During its heyday, this cinema has hosted multiple important screenings and premieres of Bengali films with the likes of Bidhan Chandra Roy, Satyajit Ray, Soumitra Chatterjee, Uttam Kumar and Suchitra Sen in attendance. On Uttam Kumar's personal request to Jitendra, the first Hindi film screened there was Chhoti Si Mulaqat (1967). However, no Hindi films were screened after that. Morning shows of English films were hosted every Sunday. Due to labour problems, Prachi was shut twice in the 80s close to a year each. The hall was still very popular with movie-goers of Bengali cinema. Films like Troyee (1982), Gurudakshina (1987) and Amar Sangi (1987) did good business. Jitendra was a bachelor. His nephew, Dipendranath Basu, was also involved in the family business. However, he was also an academic and had done his Phd in Bengali on Kaliprasanna Singha. During the daytime, he would look after the cinema. He would teach at the Calcutta Girls Women's College in the evening. Dipendranath had co-founded this college too. Jitendra was still alive when Dipendranath passed away on August 27, 1991. Dipendranath's wife, Kalpana, joined Jitendra to run the family business. Kalpana died in 2004. In 2005, Jitendra transferred the property in the name of Dipendranath's daughter, Vidisha. He then moved to Varanasi and passed away in 2006. The regular operations have been completely overseen by Vidisha since 2005. It was she who was responsible for modernizing Prachi in 2005-2006. Mithun Chakrabarty and Jeet's Yuddho (2005) had 13 days of houseful with three shows daily. In that year, Vidisha introduced surround sound at Prachi. The renovation work continued in stages. Vidisha also got in touch with the Ticketnew company to get the dedicated Prachi software to print tickets in Bengali. Prachi originally had 784 seats. Shubhodristi (2005), Chirodini... Tumi Je Amar (2007), Mon Mane Na (2008), Paran Jai Jaliya Re (2009) and Challenge (2009) did good business. In 2011, new seats were introduced. The last big Bengali hit was Chander Pahar (2013). However, the lack of interest in the big screen impacted the sales figure at Prachi too. Decision was then taken to screen Hindi films. Madras Cafe (2013) was the first Hindi film to be screened after this decision was taken. Vidisha also started screening noon shows of English films daily after she was at the helm of affairs. Currently, this noon show of English films does well with college-goers. New business models were introduced for sustainability. In 2016, the seats were reduced to 500. A food court was inaugurated. In 2017, 3D screen was introduced. However, the pandemic changed the game completely. The ground floor was open for cinema till March 2020. When Prachi reopened in October 2020, the ground floor was out of bounds for cine-goers. By November-end, Prachi shut again. In between, there was a personal crisis in Vidisha's family when she lost her husband. Prachi reopened in December. In January 2012 a decision was taken to renovate the theatre. The roof was damaged due to cyclone Amphan. Besides, the footfall was low and Prachi was shut for renovation in March 2021. To create a sustainable financial model, Vidisha took a franchise of M Bazaar. Its retail outlet is now on the ground floor in place of the food court. Now, the seating capacity is 200. The revamped Prachi opened on August 19, 2021, with Mukhosh and Bell Bottom.