CHENNAI: A slew of demands, including permission to screen films between 9 am to 2 am and removal of 8 per cent local body tax collected on movie tickets, were placed before Chief Minister M. K. Stalin on Friday by the movie producers, distributors and exhibitors.
Expressing concern over a drastic drop in the number of persons visiting cinema halls, representatives of the film industry, who called on Stalin, wanted the PWD rules to be amended to allow for the conversion of single screen theatres into multiple screen facilities.
Regretting that apart from the number of theatres in the State coming down to 1000 from 4000, even those with 1000 seat capacity were drawing just 100 or 150 spectators per show, the industry representatives said that by converting those single screens to three or four screens more films could be screened simultaneously to overcome the losses of theatre owners.
On the tax structure they said that apart from GST, which is charged at a rate of 12 per cent for tickets priced up to Rs 100 and 18 per cent for those costing above Rs 100, a local body tax of 8 per cent was charged on every ticket, which could be done away with to bring down the overall cost of movie tickets, they said.
They also wanted the reintroduction of the scheme to provide subsidy and also tax exemption for movies with pure Tamil titles, which was in vogue during the earlier DMK government headed by M. Karunanidhi, saying that the scheme was abolished during the AIADMK regime.
A seven day celebration by the producers union as part of Karunanidhi’s centenary celebration was also announced on the occasion.
