The Hindu : Andhra Pradesh / Hyderabad News : Telugu film industry wants scrapping of GO

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Thursday, May 15, 2008
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Andhra Pradesh

Andhra Pradesh - Hyderabad

Telugu film industry wants scrapping of GO

Special Correspondent

HYDERABAD: Telugu film industry urged the State Government to rescind the GO that allows producers to increase the ticket tariff in the first two weeks of the release of a movie.

Addressing a press conference here on Wednesday, chairman of the film producers’ council Tammareddy Bharadwaja said that the industry appealed to Chief Minister Y. S. Rajasekhara Reddy to withdraw the GO, which was issued over a year ago and restore the earlier system. The industry incurred a loss of Rs. 200 crore due to the GO. Admitting that the request was a professional hara-kiri, Mr. Bharadwaj said that Dr. Reddy was kind enough to respond to the industry’s appeal and had the GO issued. However, the industry requested the Chief Minister to cancel the GO when he attended the birthday function of film director and former Union Minister Dasari Narayana Rao. The Chief Minister promised that a committee would be constituted to look into the problems of the industry and also have the GO cancelled.

Detrimental to industry

Explaining as to how the GO proved detrimental to the industry, Mr. Bharadwaj said that small budget movies had no theatre available.

Even the economics of big-budget movies too didn’t work out to the advantage of the industry. The common man was unable to bear the cost of the tickets in the first two weeks of the release of big movies. Though the GO had provided the choice of whether or not to increase the ticket tariff to producers, the industry wanted its scrapping, for in the absence of such a flexibility, the producers wouldn’t have a choice and the trends would become healthier. Producers K. Devi Varaprasad, E.V.V. Satyanarayana, R. Narayana Murthy and others also participated.

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