Budget woes for B-Town

B-Town is complaining that the Union Budget has not helped them in any way.

A trade analyst from Bollywood says, “If the film industry feels excluded from the budget there’s a reason for it. The budget is not made on the day it is announced. It is an on-going process which begins four-five months earlier. Representatives from all industries meet the Finance Minister and discuss what they expect from the budget. Why didn’t the Producers Guild headed by Siddharth Roy Kapur send representatives to the FM when it was being prepared with their wishlist? We got industry status thanks to Pahlaj Nihalani in 1999, but we don’t capitalise on that. Because of that we started getting funds for films from banks. Our main concerns are piracy and entertainment tax. B-Town folks could have asked for entertainment tax to be reduced or block websites showing pirated films or, like China, ask for land for the film industry to build more theatres. China has three times our screen count. When other industries are fighting for themselves and send their delegates months before the budget is presented, why don’t we? Now, we shouldn’t complain and be disappointed if we don’t get any tax relief.”