Which Bollywood actress's sizzle quotient will show on New Year's eve?

With Bollywood A-listers like Kareena Kapoor and Aishwarya Rai-Bachchan keeping away from New Year’s Eve (NYE)  bashes, actor Malaika Arora Khan may just walk away with the plumpest assignment.

Sources inform that sponsors are now lining up the next rung of Bollywood actors like Mallika Sherawat, Bipasha Basu, Lara Dutta, Celina Jaitley, Genelia D’Souza, Neha Dhupia, Esha Koppikhar, Amrita Rao, Yana Gupta.

“The standard performer rate for any  bash is around Rs 3 crore for an hour. You can add one more crore for a big name to meet the cost of dancers, costumes. We had approached Bipasha, but she’s yet to give us the nod,” says a prominent event manager.

All event managers agree on the fact that the current hit songs determine the market value of a performer, which explains why Malaika Arora-Khan is topping the list as she has the biggest chartbuster Munni badnaam hui to her credit at present. Sources say that actor Katrina Kaif’s to-be-released item number might just give Malaika competition in December.

Says Sabbas Joseph, director of an event management company, “Given a choice, everybody will like to see a Katrina and Kareena on stage. Though we aren’t hosting any such event this year one always goes by the immediate market demands (read : hit songs).”

The bigger the star, the bigger hole it will dig in your pocket.  “NYE is a premium date (for partying). The prices of all  commodities shoot up. Even the star, who’s to perform, charge high, which again is validated by the star’s popularity at the moment,” explains Mohammad Morani, director of another  event management company.

So how much does that ‘demand’ translate into?  Malaika’s current market price is said to be Rs2.5 crore for a half-hour performance. Celina and Neha are apparently charging Rs57 lakh (for one hour) and Rs15 lakh (for half-hour) respectively. The male brigade performing this year: Actors Vivek Oberoi in Dubai and Govinda in Mumbai. Vivek’s fees are said to be around Rs1 crore.