Bollywood industry to shut down on February 23

Bollywood industry to shut down on February 23

The Film Federation of India (FFI) has wished-for a nationwide strike of the film industry on February 23, 2012 in order to protest against the proposed service tax of the Central Government.

The Central Government of India is planning to levy service tax but the filmmaker doesn’t want it at all because it would directly affect the cost of their movies.

An insider from the Indian cinematic industry told the media that the budget of many films has already been decided and with the sudden implementation of service tax, they will all get affected badly.

An industry insider informed Mumbai Mirror, “While the cinema industry would definitely suffer due to the strike, most members of the fraternity have decided to support it. The imposition of service tax will cripple the filmmaking process. The Central Government has proposed a service tax of nearly 10.3 per cent. This is not a small percentage. The budget of many films would be hit rather badly.”

Meanwhile, Madhur Bhandarkar and Mahesh Bhatt were also unpleased with the sudden change. Bhandarkar, who is currently working on his upcoming film ‘Heroine’, stated that Heroine’s budget was finalised almost seven months back and it would suffer badly, if the service tax proposal gets passed.

Bhatt, who is making a much-anticipated film ‘Jism 2’, on the same note, insisted that the service tax is not welcomed at all and the industry will should be shut down so that the government takes a notice.

Nevertheless, Ratan Jain, who is also a Bollywood filmmaker, thinks strike is not the right way to present your point. Ratan believes the industry will only lose money, if it goes on strike.

Ratan said, “I have received a letter in this regard. A strike is not the right answer to our woes in this regard. The strike would only make us lose money. A proper representation by the film industry which can address the Finance Ministry would be the right way to solve this.”

Well, all said and done, let’s see if the Film Producer’s Guild, which is the top line filmmakers association in India, will join the strike or not because it is not a part of the FFI.

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Posted by Imran Shaukat Khan on Feb 2 2012. Filed under Bollywood. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.