Over the past couple of months, various meetings of B-Town stars and filmmakers with Prime Minister Narendra Modi happened. Be it at the inauguration of India’s first National Museum of Indian Cinema in Mumbai or the meeting of Bollywood biggies with PM Modi. It seems that both the meetings have paid off with finance minister Piyush Goyal announcing single-window clearance for Indian filmmakers in the Interim Budget 2019.
As flexibility, Bollywood filmmakers can submit all paperwork for their movies at a single location/authority. Heretofore only international filmmakers were provided with this facility. Undoubtedly this will save their lot of time and extra costs.
The Finance Minister said,
“Regulatory provisions will rely more on self-declaration. We will also introduce anti-camcording provisions in the Cinematograph Act to control the menace of piracy.”Further, the Finance Minister said that the Bollywood industry is a major employment generator, praising the industry. As per some reports from the consultancy firm Deloitte India, Hindi film industry employed nearly 250,000 people in 2017, compared to 160,800 in 2013.
Also, he praised a recently released flick Uri: The Surgical Strike which is based on the army operation against militants in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir. He said,
“It was fun watching Uri. There was a lot of energy in the movie (Uri movie mein jo maza aaya. Jo Josh tha)."Many figures from the movie industry expressed their happiness about the budget announcements. The President of Producers Guild of India, Siddharth Roy Kapur, said,
“We are delighted that the immense contribution of Indian cinema towards employment generation in the country has been acknowledged and applauded in Parliament during the presentation of the Union Budget. The announcement of a single-window clearance mechanism for Indian filmmakers filming within India is a significant step and has the potential to play a huge role in boosting tourism in the country.The amendments in the anti-camcording provisions will support the industry’s growth by curtailing illegal recordings of films in cinema halls and will go a long way towards reducing piracy.”
Also, the great filmmaker Madhur Bhandarkar took to social media and tweeted,
“Welcome move by the Narendra Modi government for initiating anti-camcording provision in the Cinematography Act to fight piracy and single-window clearance for film shootings. This will help the film industry in a big way.”Further, the Finance Minister Goyal mentioned that moviegoers who used to pay multiple taxes up to 50% will pay much lower tax at 12%.
In this context, Sudhanshu Vats, Group CEO and MD, Viacom18, stated that this policy provisions would surely enhance ease of doing business.
He said,
“It will help the Rs 156 billion industry grow at a faster clip. I also welcome the move to include anti-camcording provisions as part of the Cinematography Act. This will ensure that in-theatre pirated recordings now become a penal offense and will act as a strong deterrent to piracy.”Also, Rajesh Mishra CEO (Indian operations), UFO Moviez, said,
“We believe that this is a great move for the Indian film industry. We welcome the government’s initiative to introduce the anti-camcording provision. This will give teeth to the law to take stringent action against the offender. We are sure that this is a very pragmatic step by the government and it will ensure reduction of losses the film industry incurs.”He added that Goyal’s announcements regarding the film industry would surely benefit the cinema exhibition industry in many ways.