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Film industry girding up for strike

Even though the Maharashtra government has put its sales tax policy for the film industry in abeyance for two weeks, an action committee set up to fight the tax on transfer of copyright is doubtful whether the government would be able to roll back the proposed levy.

A delegation of the action committee met Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh recently and protested against imposition of further taxes on the beleaguered industry, which is facing threats from extortionists and a fall in earnings due to poor business. They said the industry would go on strike if the government were to impose the tax.

The chief minister has appointed a committee under the chairmanship of Finance Minister Jayant Patil to chalk out a solution and find out other ways to generate revenue for the state government. The industry sources, however, say the government is bent upon taxing the ''living dead''. Another back-breaking tax would cripple the Bombay entertainment industry, which is already reeling under the worst ever resource crunch in its history, they assert.

It is a cold, premeditated ploy to milk the industry dry, a draconian levy that will be best fought collectively, rather than in the form of ineffectual letters of prayer and request from individual trade bodies, they say.

The first meeting of the Jayant Patil committee is on June 11 and its outcome will decide the future course of action by the film industry.

Through an amendment to the Maharashtra Sales Tax Act, the government plans to implement a four per cent tax on all kinds of transfer of rights or use of copyright -- in film, television software, music and video.

A similar enactment 15 years ago was annulled after the industry struck work for a month. The government had appointed the then finance secretary Madhav Godbole to study whether the tax was justified and his suggestion was in the negative.

Industry sources point out that Godbole had noted: ''Films are not sold, only the exhibition rights are transferred under the Bombay Sales Tax Act, 1959. Hence, there should be no sales tax on the transfer of copyright by film producers.''

The action committee members say things have become worse for show-biz since 1985. The ratio of hits to flops has fallen drastically. Now, for every release that manages to break even, there are 30 that don't. In fact, even distributors and exhibitors who bear the brunt of it all, are on the ''brink of extinction''.

Most producers feel that for all the fanfare with which industry status was granted to filmdom, the benefits that go with it are yet to trickle down. Electricity and water are yet to be provided at industrialised rates, studio and set rentals still cost the producers a tidy packet and even the state-owned film city charges a premium for the meagre services it provides.

Shooting on roads, beaches and port property don't come cheap either, and permission to shoot at public places never comes easy.

In the absence of a single window system, which is being tried out in some states, Bombay's filmmakers have to run from pillar to post getting sanctions on time. They also lament that when others states levy as little as 15 to 30 per cent by way of entertainment tax, Maharashtra charges 60 per cent.

''When collections from theatres have hit an all time low, the entertainment tax comes like an insult to injury,'' they said, pointing out that television, cable TV and video parlours are not entitled to entertainment tax. There are hardly 1,100 cinemas in Maharashtra as against more than 2,500 each in Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu.

The All India Film Producers' Council and Indian Motion Pictures Producers' Association have written to the chief minister protesting against the tax. They argue that the tax goes against the chief minister's assurances that the state government would provide the industry with an atmosphere conducive to growth.

Coming at a time when a majority of films have not been doing well at the box office, the levy shows the government is interested only in revenues and not in the industry's welfare, they said.

Pahlaj Nihalani, Indian Motion Pictures Producers Association president Shakti Samanta, Surinder Kapoor, theatre owners president U A Thadani, Yash Chopra and Indian Motion Pictures Distributors Association president Ramesh Sippy are among the members of the action committee.

UNI

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