Entertainment tax benefit to boost Bengal film industry

The West Bengal government’s decision to reduce the entertainment tax on Bengali films to 2 per cent from the existing 10 per cent , is expected to provide relief to the film industry.

Surinder Singh, president of Eastern India Motion Pictures Association, and a leading producer, said that the move would be very good for the local industry. “Our main problem is piracy. This move will improve business.”

Arijit Dutta, one of the largest distributor-exhibitors in West Bengal, said, “This will especially help producers and distributors, but not exhibitors so much.”

According to Dutta, in the last eight years, around 40 cinemas have shut down in the state. “There will not be enough places to screen Bengali movies if standalone theatres keep shutting down. If the state government had injected this 8 per cent fund to exhibitors, it would have been especially helpful,” Dutta added.

Around 80 films were released in 2009 in Bengal, of which some 65 were commercial failures.

However, the tax benefit will not bring down ticket prices at standalone cinemas. Earlier, for a Rs 100 ticket, producers had to pay a tax of Rs 10. It will now become Rs 2. So producers now stand to make more money, but not exhibitors.

At multiplexes, tickets for Bengali and other regional language films are already 100 per cent cheaper than tickets for Bollywood films. The average ticket price for a Bengali movie is as low as Rs 50 at a multiplex in West Bengal.