Technicians' strike called off

The flash strike by technicians belonging to the Federation of Cine & Workers of Eastern India has been called off after the intervention of West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee.
Shooting of at least 10 Bengali mega-serials, including "Bhutu" and "Kiranmala", had remained suspended since last night due to the strike called by technicians, who demanded payment of overtime allowance for working more than 10 hours.
"Although there was a 2014 agreement stipulating that after 10 hours of shooting all technicians should be given a overtime allowance, most production houses didn't abide by it despite many serials enjoying high TRPs and we are being underpaid," a spokesman for the federation said.

"We are ready to shoot for 10 hours daily, but anything beyond has to be compensated monetarily," he said.
After the intervention of the Chief Minister and PWD Minister Aroop Biswas, the striking workers and the production houses agreed that there would be no overtime till July 19 when the issue will be discussed threadbare, according to the sources.
Among serials whose shooting was affected by the strike were "B'edini Molua", "Potol Kumar Ganwala" and "Goenda Ginni".
The producers had earlier denied that any agreement with the technicians had been breached.