The government will do its utmost to address the problems of single-screen cinema owners in Maharashtra, state home minister Dilip Walse Patil told an industry delegation yesterday (7th October). The meeting with Patil was held at Mantralaya in Bombay and was chaired by him. Among the others who attended the meeting were additional chief secretary, home, Manukumar Srivastava, additional chief secretary, appeal, security, Anand Limaye, director general of police, Sanjay Pandey, commissioner of police, Hemant Nagarale, and former MP Ashok Mohol. The industry delegation included Annasaheb Mohol, Nitin Datar, Prakash Chaphalkar and Deepak Kudale.
The issue of cinema licence was discussed. Currently, the licence is non-transferrable. The minister said that the licence should be made transferable and tradeable.
The delegation told the home minister that single-screen cinemas have had to face huge financial losses during the lockdown period and they needed aids and reliefs from the government to come on track.
Dilip Walse Patil directed the concerned authorities to convene a meeting under the chairmanship of the finance minister to take a positive decision on the demand for service charges and reimbursement of state GST on tax-free films.
The home minister approved the demand for extension of last year’s licence renewal period while reopening cinemas and directed the home department to take action in this regard. He also said that efforts would be made to solve the various problems such as issues of property tax, advertisement tax, water charges, soft loans, electricity tariff concessions, etc. during the lockdown period.