Film industry doesn’t expect any drama

While the demonetising of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes by the government has caused a lot of discomfort to the common man, the film industry claims it won’t be impacted much. Prime Minister Narendra Modi even thanked the celebrities who congratulated and lauded him on his efforts.

There are allegations that the film industry runs mostly on cash, but directors and producers claim that the scene has changed nowadays and most transactions are via bank transfers and not cash. Director and producer Satish Kaushik says that the film industry won’t be affected much. “These days, the film industry doesn’t deal in just cash. The industry has become very organised since the corporate culture established itself in the country. In fact, even the salaries we give to our employees goes through the bank with TDS and service tax deductions,” he says.

Bejoy Nambiar, the director of Wazir, says the same. “I don’t think that the film industry will be affected in the long run. The corporate structure of transactions has been in place for over a decade now and transactions have been happening via checks for a long time.”

Talking about the drastic move by the government, Mr Kaushik said, “It is definitely a good step to get rid of black money, fake notes and corruption, but for now, it will cause some upheaval — people will doubtlessly find it difficult to adjust, but that’ll happen. I’m not sure about the Rs 2,000 note being successful though.”

Director and producer Kunal Kohli said, “It’s a silly, age-old notion that there is a lot of cash in the film industry. We get our money from studios, and whether that is abroad or home-grown, the transactions are done via cheques. The rest of our funds come from multiplexes and single screen theatres.”