The much-talked-about Goods & Services Tax regime will sound the death knell for the regional film industry. Barring the big budget films, India will become a country that will only screen Hindi and English films. Be it Telugu, Tamil, Kannada, Marathi, Bengali or Punjabi – they all survive on tax benefits.
Consider this. Regional films in most of these languages enjoy zero% entertainment tax barring Telugu (7% for small and 14% for big films) and Bengali (2%). This is how regional cinema has survived over the decades.
Being asked to pay up 28% tax now is atrocious, to say the least. It is well-nigh impossible and the cascading effect on all the 24 crafts of the film industry will be the last nail in the coffin for small regional films. These are the reactions from a cross section of those in the film industry to the GST.
“When we met Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, he was appreciative enough to our request to reconsider the GST proposals for the film industry. He even sounded as if there was a slip somewhere and promised to look into it,” said producer Suresh Babu.
Considered a biggie in the production as well as distribution and exhibition sectors in the Telugu film industry, he said the delegation to New Delhi had earnestly appealed to Mr. Jaitley asking for the Centre to have a re-look. Chairman of the Telugu Film Chamber’s Anti-Piracy Cell and an analyst, A. Rajkumar, simply said the GST would be extremely bad for the industry. “Fitting films in the highest tax slab of 28% will mean the common man just cannot afford to take his family out for a film even in single screens once a month. Films are the most affordable and the best form of entertainment for poor and the middle classes,” he summed up.
Pradeep, a senior film journalist with over two decades of experience, said the GST would affect all the 24 crafts. “Be it a producer, a director or other technicians right down to those in the lowest strata in the industry – they will all be hit,” he said.
