Professional photographers and videographers all over the city closed their photo studios and staged a demonstration, appealing to the State government to extend the benefits of welfare schemes to them, at the Gandhi statue, near GVMC, here on Monday.
The bandh was observed on the call given by the AP Professional Photographers and Videographers Association to highlight the problems of photographers due to cancellation of functions and events in view of the COVID-19 pandemic situation. Association State working president Krishna Prasad Behara said that the lack of weddings and functions for two months during the lockdown and even after that caused untold financial hardship to the photographers and videographers.
He said that a number of private photographers had ended their lives due to financial problems in the State. He appealed to the State government to include private photographers and videographers in schemes like ‘Chedhodu’, extend insurance, interest-free loans and provide white ration cards to enable them tide over the crisis.
Association secretary G.V. Ananda Rao and vice-president Srinivasa Reddy were among those who participated.
