In a bid to help single screen cinemas survive during COVID-19, the Karnataka Film Chamber of Commerce on Wednesday appealed to Chief Minister B.S. Yediyurappa to recommend to the GST Council to provide them with exemption from GST.
A delegation of KFCC comprising chairman Jairaj and actors Shivarajkumar and Yash among others pointed out that Telangana had made such a recommendation to the GST council. At the same time, they demanded that the government bring down the ticket rates in multiplexes to ₹200. The multiplexes had challenged the government’s order in this regard on the basis of technicalities as the order had been issued by the Information Department instead of Home Department, they said, and appealed to the government to rectify it.
The delegation appealed to Chief Minister to reimburse the SGST with respect to the Kannada cine sector to the producers concerned. The delegation explained that the Kannada cine world had faced losses even in the earlier regime when the State had declared complete tax holiday for it. But now, they have to compete with other language films as there is an uniform tax for all in the GST regime, they pointed out. They appealed to the government to protect Kannada film producers by reimbursing the SGST collected.
Expressing concern over the move to disconnect water and power supply of defaulting single screen cinemas, the delegation appealed to the Chief Minister to direct the authorities concerned to provide relief.
Piracy in lockdown
Alleging that cine producers and the government were facing losses during lockdown due to piracy that had resulted in streaming of films through OTT media services without getting permission from producers, the delegation demanded that a separate cyber cell be set up to look into these issues.
