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Centre, states to meet on September 1 to ponder cinema's industry status

Though the captains of Indian cinema look to the future with optimism in the wake of recognition as an industry, solutions to problems like video piracy and the irrational taxation policy will come only if cinema is brought on the concurrent list in the Constitution from the state list.

Realising this, Information and Broadcasting Minister Sushma Swaraj had written to state chief ministers seeking their views on the issue soon after the Centre announced the recognition of Indian cinema as an industry. She also sought the views of the states about rationalising the entertainment tax structure for cinema, which ranges from 66 per cent in some states to 150 per cent in some others.

Information ministers of all states and Union Territories are to meet in Delhi on September 1 to consider these steps and find avenues for financing films. The ministers will also be asked to recognise the film production in their respective states as industry.

Meanwhile, Swaraj has said there is no proposal to set up any financial institution for funding of production of films. But the ministry has initiated proposals with the primary objective of making film production eligible for institutional and bank finance.

The finance ministry has been asked to include production and allied activities in the list of activities eligible for institutional finance. Recommendations have also been made for rationalisation of certain taxation issues which have a bearing on the film industry.

Realising it was for the industry to make their product marketable and 'bankable', a meeting of the film industry and the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry is to be held shortly to discuss the issue of making films marketable.

The I&B ministry -- being the nodal ministry -- is also taking steps about the problem of video piracy, which falls under two heads. It comes under the Copyright Act, a matter related to the human resource development ministry, and under the states is related to law and order.

The minister has set up three different bodies to help in the transition of cinema from an unrecognised entity to an industry. They are the Advisory Committee which has nine members and is headed by the minister and a 39-member Film Development Council and a 29-member film export forum, both headed by I&B secretary P G Mankad.

The FDC has a term of one year, and will suggest ways and means for sustained and all-round development of the film industry and recommend ways for improving and upgrading the technological and qualitative aspects of Indian cinema. The export forum will consider ways of improving exports of films, television software, music and other forms of audio-visual entertainment products in a coordinated manner.

Members of the Advisory Committee are Dilip Kumar, Yash Chopra, Bhupen Hazarika, Aparna Sen, Mani Rathnam, D Rama Naidu, Adoor Gopalakrishnan, Shatrughan Sinha and Shabana Azmi.

Novelist U R Anantha Murthy, veteran film-makers Sunil Dutt and Ramanand Sagar, and members of Parliament Jaya Prada and Vinod Khanna are among the 39 members of the FDC. It comprises six representatives of film-related organisations, six ex-officio members and other members.

The film-makers representing Hindi cinema in the FDC are Saeed Mirza, Prakash Jha and Govind Nihalani. Other film-makers on the FDC are Jahnu Barua, Gautaman Bhaskaran, Rituparno Ghosh, Kamal Hasan, Shaji N Karun, P Madhavan, R. Prasad, Sarat Pujari, C V L Sastry, and Kiran Shantaram. Film artistes include thespian Pran, Hema Malini, Sharmila Tagore, Pooja Bhatt and Gautami. Film lyricist Javed Akhtar, exhibitor Uday Kaushish and distributor G S Mayawala are the other members from the film industry.

The representatives of organisations are president of the Film Federation of India Santosh Singh Jain, Federation of Indian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, all-India Film Employees Confederation, Federation of Film Societies of India, Indian Documentary Producers Association and chairman of the Industrial Development Bank of India.

The ex-officio members are the chairpersons of the Film and Television Institute of India, the Satyajit Ray Film and Television Institute, the National Centre of Films for Children and Young People, Central Board of Film Certification, chief producer of the Films Division and managing director of the National Film Development Corporation.

The forum includes actor Jackie Shroff, former film star and presently television producer Saira Bano, film-makers Randhir Kapoor and Sooraj Barjatya, and Alyque Padamsee. Members include Prannoy Roy and Ronnie Screwvala from the world of television, film-makers Amit Khanna, Ramesh Sippy, Dasari Narayana Rao, Bharati Raja, Sandip Ray, Udayan Bose, Sudhir Jalan and Tarjani Vakil. Other members are K G Dossani, Harsh Goenka, Lalit Modi, R Mohan, and S K Pasari.

The ex-officio members are the secretary general of the FICCI, president of the FFI, the executive director of the National Association of Software and Services Companies, a representative of the commerce ministry, managing director of the National Film Development Corporation, the director in the Directorate of Film Festivals and the joint secretary (films) in the I&B ministry.

Meanwhile, the film industry has been given several concessions as a follow-up to the government's decision to recognise it as an industry. These include the reduction in the customs duty on the jumbo rolls of cinematographic film to ten per cent from the present 25 per cent.

For a film released on commercial basis at least 90 days before the end of the previous year, full amortisation of the cost incurred on production or acquisition of distribution rights of the film will be allowed in the year of release itself. Until now, this limit was 180 days, and no amortisation was allowed if the film was released later.

Producers will now have to give information only about payments made by them which are over Rs 25,000 in any financial year. Until now, film-makers had to report payments over Rs 5,000. Recorded audio and video cassettes have also been exempted from excise duty, but has increased the excise duty on unrecorded audio cassettes by three per cent to 13 per cent.

However, industry leaders say that two other demands are still pending: the counterveiling duty on raw film stock is illegal since the Hindustan Photo Films does not make colour stock in the country, and benefits should be given under Section 80 HHC of the Income Tax Act as the film-makers also exported films and earned foreign exchange.

UNI