Amid Dip In Cinemagoers, Film Industry Representatives Meet Tamil Nadu CM MK Stalin

On Friday, film producers, distributors, and cinema owners met Tamil Nadu CM MK Stalin to talk about their demands regarding the situation of cinema halls in the state. Some of their notable demands were that they wanted the screening time of the cinema halls to be from 9 am to 2 am. They also wanted the government to remove the local body tax collected on movie tickets. These demands were brought forward to the CM due to a drop in the number of people watching movies in theatres.

The representatives of the film industry urged MK Stalin to amend the rules and ask for permission to turn single-screen theatres into multi-screen facilities. They revealed that the number of theatres in the state has come down to 1000 from 4000; and even among them, the seats occupied (on average) are just 100–150 people. They urged that converting the screen into multiple screen facilities would allow the cinema hall owners to run shows of the films simultaneously and would help them recover the losses.

They also demanded that the local body tax of 8% that is applicable on the tickets be removed. Usually, there is a GST charge of 12% on movie tickets that cost up to Rs 100 and a GST charge of Rs 18% on tickets that cost more than Rs 100. This has somehow affected the number of cinemagoers.

They also demanded the return of a subsidy and tax exemption scheme for films with pure Tamil titles. According to reports, the scheme was popular during the previous DMK government led by M Karunanidhi, but it was abandoned during the AIADMK era. MK Stalin has listened to the demands of the film producers and theatre owners but has not yet revealed any decision regarding the changes in the rules.

MK Stalin has recently been in the news after he announced that the government would establish a modern indoor stadium-cum-auditorium at the Madras Institute of Technology (MIT). A total of Rs 50 crore has been allotted for this construction. He declared this at the inaugural celebration of the 75th-anniversary celebrations of the institute. At the event, the CM talked about the importance of technology and how it has affected education and other economic sectors in India.