The latest decision of the Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy government in Andhra Pradesh to take over cinema ticket sales business might end up in a legal wrangle, sources close to the industry said.
According to these sources, film industry is like any other private industry and absolutely has no involvement of the government – right from production, publicity, distribution and screening.
The government will only facilitate the industry by providing certain incentives and granting permissions for shooting and additional shows etc. In return, the government will get revenue from the industry in the form of GST, permission fees and entertainment tax from ticket sales.
Now, the government wants to take over the business of ticket sales – which is the only revenue source for the film industry.
If the sale of tickets goes into the hands of the government, the film industry would be at the mercy of the government to get their share of collections.
While the intention of the Jagan government to prevent the manipulation of ticket sales by the theatres and bring in transparency in ticket sales through direct monitoring, sources say it would be extremely difficult for the government to run the ticket sales’ business.
“Instead, it would have been better to entrust the task to a private agency like Bookmyshow.com itself and monitor the collections, so that the government would get its revenue,” a source said.
It is learnt some disgruntled exhibitors and distributors are planning to move the high court challenging the government order to take over the cinema ticket sales. It would be interesting to see what turn the issue will take.
