News of the imminent shutdown of the Indian Motion Picture Distributors’ Association (reported here on 26th March, 2024) sent shockwaves in the film trade. But the industry people might feel inclined to change their initial reaction of shock and disbelief once they read the complete story.
It may sound unbelievable but the 84-year-old body today has barely 40-45 members, many of them being distributors who haven’t released a film in years. Why, none of the managing committee members has released a single film in the last four years. Of the 40-odd members, about 25 haven’t even paid their annual fee of Rs. 200! Active distributors of Bombay are a handful — or even less — but most of them aren’t members of this Association of Bombay distributors, which once had a lot of clout.
Balkrishna Shroff, a senior and respected managing committee member of the IMPDA, rued, “After the Competition Commission of India (erstwhile Monopolies and Restrictive Trade Practices Commission) held that orders passed by the IMPDA (or any trade association) are not enforceable on its members, IMPDA, obviously, lost its teeth. It was left with no powers whatsoever. Besides, IMPDA has no joint tribunal with any other trade association. So it doesn’t make sense for the Association to continue without any work or powers.”
Another member, wishing to remain anonymous, told Information, “We asked our auditors what options the Association had, given the circumstances and the scenario. They told us that we could either merge with another association with similar objectives or wind up and give all the monies after liquidation of the Association’s assets, to a charitable organisation. Since there is no film trade body with objectives in alignment with the IMPDA’s, the Association was left with only one option — to wind up, sell off its assets and donate to charity.”
The IMPDA has assets and cash totally valued at around Rs. 6-7 crore. The only property it has is its office on the first floor of Vijay Chambers, opposite Dreamland Cinema in Bombay. The managing committee has decided to sell the office, and donate the entire bank balance (including the money to be received from sale of property) to an organisation without political or religious affiliations. “We might think of donating everything to, say, the Army,” said another prominent member of the managing committee.
The IMPDA had years ago collected a huge amount of money as share of its members from INR hire charges. Almost Rs. 92 lakh from that still remains to be disbursed among members. Said Shroff, “When we announced our decision to refund the monies to our members, many of them paid their fees and rejoined the Association. However, even they didn’t show any interest in the Association matters. Clearly, the body has over the years lost its position.”
Another respected member of the IMPDA told Information, “There is no provision to distribute the monies received from liquidation of assets of the Association among its members. The entire money has to be donated to charity.”
Given the circumstances, the shutdown of the IMPDA seems a foregone conclusion. As one managing committee member remarked, “Till we are around, we will ensure that the Association is wound up and the monies are given away to charity. Who knows, someone else might be eyeing the assets of the Association with a view to squandering the money received from sale of the same. Till we are alive, we will not let that happen. Hence we are in a hurry to shut down the Association.”
The general body of the IMPDA will have to finally take a call. In all probability, it will go with the managing committee which seems have made up its mind. It is believed that except for one member of the managing committee, all the others were in favour of the shutdown for all the above reasons.