Chennai: With the GST rollout just two days away, the south film fraternity is a worried lot. Despite several attempts to make sure that the tax slab for cinema tickets is not as high as a 28 percent, the Centre turned a deaf ear to their pleas.
While many celebrities have openly spoken about the impact of GST on cinema tickets, the recent to join them is R Madhavan. "It is going to be a big concern. It is going to be a dramatic concern; We have been burdened with a lot of tax, I'm told. If my information is correct, it's almost quite brutal. We have to see how this gets sorted out. I'm sure there will be sensible minds who'd work it out for us," said R Madhavan to CNN-News18.
Earlier, Kamal Haasan had raised concerns of the South film fraternity and said: "We welcome GST and one India one tax. But this 28 percent tax slab will ruin regional cinema. I urge Finance Minister to reduce the tax slab to 12 or 15 percent."
Reacting to Kamal Haasan's statement, Arun Jaitley in an exclusive interaction to Network18 said: "The Council is a political body, responsible, accountable body - we will certainly look at each and every representation...But merely using the media for propaganda and saying I will put pressure on you to reduce...that's not going to fix the dividends."
Kamal Haasan on Twitter once again urged the Finance Minister. He tweeted: "Not pressurising. It's a plea & SOS from regional cinema to our FM. We fear it will collapse. We request the council to do all to save it.
Many theatre owners are still confused. A source from a renowned theatre said they have written to the Centre on what would the price of tickets would be starting July. Sources, however, said the cost of a ticket would be Rs 153.60. It's the first time in many years that Chennai's cinema tickets will see a price hike. The cap of Rs 120 per ticket will remain a history.
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