A committee has been made to resolve pay issues.
Shooting for Bengali TV serials resumed this morning in the city, a day after Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee held a meeting with the artistes and producers to end a deadlock over regularization of payment.
The impasse between the Artists' Forum and Welfare Association of Television Producers had stalled shoots for six days, forcing TV channels to air old episodes. Banerjee, after convening a meeting of representatives from both sides, told reporters yesterday that a conciliation committee has been set up with state Youth Affairs Minister Aroop Biswas as the chairman and veteran actor Soumitra Chatterjee as chief adviser to "look into the complaints".
She also assured the artistes and technicians that the newly formed committee will hold a meeting every month to ensure that they are not deprived of their basic rights.
Among those who were present at the meeting at the secretariat yesterday were actor Prosenjit Chatterjee, the working president of the Artists' Forum, Shrikant Mohta of Shree Venkatesh Films and Nispal Singh of Surinder Films. Talking to PTI today, Arindam Ganguly, the general secretary of Artists' Forum, said all performers and technicians turned up at the studios for the shoot today as per "call time".
The conciliation committee's first meeting will take place in two days' time and hopefully we will solve all pending issues, including demand for overtime payment, in an amicable manner." The Artists' Forum had been demanding salaries by 15th of every month, hourly incentives for toiling over 10 hours and a 14-hour work limit every day.
Leena Gangopadhyay, a script writer of TV soaps and one of the members of the conciliation committee, expressed confidence that the differences will be sorted out soon. "Now that the shooting has resumed, we are confident that all problems will be resolved sometime soon," she said.
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 "Image courtesy Zee 24 Ghanta")
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