Will rescue Covid-hit Tollywood, says KCR

Chief Minister K. Chandrashekar Rao on Sunday assured captains of the Telugu film industry including megastar K. Chiranjeevi and A.

Nagarjuna that TRS would include measures being taken for the benefit of Tollywood in the poll TRS party’s manifesto for the GHMC elections.

Chandrashekar Rao assured the delegation led by the two stars that the state government will take all measures required to protect and support the industry in a meeting held at Pragathi Bhavan.

Addressing the film fraternity in the meeting, Rao said concessions and exemptions would be given to support the industry and its workers, since they had suffered losses due to the suspension of film shootings and closure of theatres on account of the lockdown following the Covid pandemic.

Representatives of the Telugu Film Chambers detailed for Chief Minister Rao the losses incurred by the industry due to the lockdown and sought his support.

Reminding them of the various measures taken by the government to attract industries to the state, he asked in such a scenario, will the government keep quiet when an existing industry is in trouble?

Rao said, “Hyderabad is the centre of a very large film industry like in Chennai. Lakhs of people are employed in it and are dependent on it. The pandemic had hit the film industry hard, just as it had done in other sectors too.”

Maintaining that everyone had the responsibility to save and protect the film industry, the Chief Minister said, “both the government and film personalities should make joint attempts to tackle this crisis. We will take all necessary measures. We will include in the TRS GHMC poll manifesto measures we will take for the benefit of the Telugu film industry.”

Chief Secretary Somesh Kumar, Film Chamber president and general secretaries Narayan Das Narang, K. L. Damodar Prasad, Producers’ Council President C. Kalyan, distributor Sudhakar Reddy, producer Niranjan Reddy and others also participated in the meeting.

It was decided that another meeting of the industry representatives would be held at Chiranjeevi’s house soon to discuss the matter threadbare before reverting to the government with concrete proposals.