Telugu Governments for the time being have awarded a respite to movie goers by not increasing the ticket prices but the tax system is still being condemned by the local distributors and exhibitors. They see the GST as the killer of cinema business and they are getting ready to protest the implementation in a big way. In Indian Cinema, after Hindi film industry it is the Telugu and Tamil Industry that are thriving and produce maximum number of top productions. So, the distributors and exhibitors along with producers have decided to protest the implementation and asking for change in the tax system.
Tamil Theatre owners have decided to stop screening films until further notice till the TN government decide on the Municipal tax implementation that is at a high of 30%. With GST, for a film the ta will be upto 48% and 58% on tickets rates below 100 and above 100, respectively. So the theatre owners are asking to revise the TN Government their tax system and only apply either GST or Municipal Tax. Few are demanding to cancel the entire Municipal Tax like in Kerala.
In Telugu states, The Telangana Film Chamber first decided to protest by conducting a hunger strike asking the Government to understand their problems and come up with a system that is amicable to all the parties. Several small producers are thanking Chief Minister of Telangana for reversing the Government Order of increasing the ticket rates to 200 in Multiplexes and 120 in Single Screens. They say several producers who know the higher officials in the government managed the officers and released the G.O without the knowledge of Chief Secretary and KCR helped them by reversing it.
The producer council announced their support to the Relay Hunger Strike protest and said, the Government should understand the difficulties with the new tax system and also consider the well being of the Theatres and their maintenance costs before deciding on implementing a tax system. They also decided to demand the Government to regularise the Digital content rights market and also help them in forming stricter rules to control Piracy that will be a bigger problem after GST.
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