AMID COVID FEAR ANDHRA ANNOUNCES RESTART PACKAGE FOR MOVIE THEATRES

HYDERABAD: Sankranthi is the biggest festival for Andhra Pradesh, not only for the people, but also for movie goers. The Andhra Pradesh government has announced a restart package for movie theatres in the state. A decision in this regard was taken after a Cabinet meeting with the ministers and the announcement was made by the Information and Technology Minister Perni Nani.

As per the announcement, the government has completely waived the fixed electricity charges for the theatres for April, May and June, and for the remaining months of the lockdown, the government has facilitated the deferred payment option. About 1,100 theatres across the state are included in his package.

In order to help theatres recover financially, the government has also announced that they will facilitate zero interest working capital loans of Rs 10 lakh and Rs 5 lakh for the theatres to restart their business, which can be repaid via the EMI facility. The government is going to get an additional burden of Rs 4 crore on the exchequer for this, said the Minister.

The movie industry has welcomed this decision and applauded the CM; praise has come from Chiranjeevi, Mahesh Babu as well as character artistes. But single-screen theatre managements were to commence operations from 11 December following several promises to the theatre and multiplex managements made by Telangana CM K. Chandrasekhar Rao, but the managements of single-screen theatres could not resume their operations. Since many theatre owners feel that opening of theatres when people still are scared of Covid-19, are going to be loss making.

Following the Covid-19 protocol is a big issue. Managements of film theatres have incurred a Rs 2,000 crore loss in the last nine months due to Covid-19.Producer council president of Tollywood C. Kalyan said, “The decision of the government of Andhra Pradesh is useful for one section of people; there is no relief for the producers. There is no use for the small budget movies. The government of Andhra should announce incentives. We the producers will meet both theCMs of Andhra and Telangana for a better package.”