Even as the Telangana Home Department issued an order on June 23 hiking prices of tickets in cinema halls across the State, those connected with the industry are getting set for a dialogue over what they term ‘technical mistakes’.
The G.O. Ms. No. 75 said the hike was with immediate effect, but it was yet to be implemented. Those connected with the Telugu Film Chamber of Commerce were busy holding meetings on Tuesday to decide the way forward.
A person with considerable presence in the production and exhibition areas across Telangana and Andhra Pradesh, D. Suresh Babu said, “Something is just not so right about the way things were done, issues like share allocated to online ticketing agencies at 1.98% and the like need to be sorted out.”
Telugu Film Producers Council secretary and Telugu FCC Treasurer Kodali Venkateswara Rao said that the Telangana Government was supportive of the interests of the various stakeholders in the business. Technical mistakes, he said, included reservation of rows for lower classes, online ticketing share, hiking maintenance charges to ₹ 7 per seat - up from the present ₹ 3 and ₹ 2 for air-conditioned and non A/C halls respectively, and the like.
“Producers feel left out as they are the ones who invest money for production and do not get any other share because they sell the product outright to other sectors. On the other hand, exhibitors have other avenues like revenues from parking lots, canteens, advertisements and the like. We are meeting Telangana Minister for Cinematography Talasani Srinivas Yadav on Wednesday,” he told The Hindu .
As per the new G.O., the maximum permissible admission rates in A/C single screens in Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation and other corporations in the State for higher and lower classes are ₹ 120 and ₹ 40 respectively, while in non A/C halls it shall ₹ 60 and ₹ 20, respectively.
In other municipalities it was fixed at ₹ 80 and ₹ 30 in A/C halls and ₹ 60 and ₹ 20 for non A/C halls. In nagar and gram panchayats it will be ₹ 70 and ₹ 20 for A/C and ₹ 50 and ₹ 15 in non A/C theatres for higher and lower classes, respectively.
