Enkayaar, Bollywood Trade News Network

There were lot of expectations from the union budget for the entertainment industry to get relief but the expectations have been belied. If there is one segment that is seeing foreign investment of all kinds, it is the entertainment industry. Even Walt Disney, NBC and major entertainment companies are entering into various kinds of tie-ups to gain foothold in the ever-expanding segment of entertainment.

The focus of this budget has been to give some relief to the common man as also to provide incentives to the middle class. There has been expectation from the financial statement of the government that now the middle class would increase the spending in view of more money being given into the hands arising out of a slew of tax incentives.

For the middle class the entertainment has emerged as the biggest elixir and if sops had been provided to the film industry in particular and entertainment industry in general then the consumer could have expected a bonanza. As it is, the quotient of entertainment is right now more eschewed in favour of the bigger cities and this is also one of the deciding factors in migration that is happening in these big cities. If the incentives could have been provided to the entertainment industry then the industry would have taken one more foot forward to expand its outreach to hitherto unreached areas of the country, and these hitherto unreached areas are quite large. But with the incentives not coming, the quality of entertainment that the developed India is aspiring for would remain a distant dream for the real India.

For a common man whose only source of entertainment in most of the cases is through cinema, he could have been given a real taste of what his relatively better off brethren are experiencing in the city had there been incentives for the entertainment industry.

Why should the qualitative entertainment be a requiem only of those who live in the metropolitan and larger cities and not those who comprise the major parts of the country? After all, the dream that is weaved on the celluloid helps him forget his drudgery but major dream churning machines take so much time to travel to his place of settlement that it loses its sheen and qualitativeness.

Tax incentives are used as a veritable tool to develop underdeveloped areas, and in these incentives entertainment industry should also be given a fair share of representation and the development that these cities would experience would be much more than what it is seeing now. If for a laborer who has left his city in search of a job, if he is ensured entertainment after a hard day he would love to go back to his work place with a renewed sense of vigor in the morning. May be, when the next budget comes in, a thought would be given to the synergy that entertainment industry can provide along with other industries and this industry would get its due desserts. There always is a light at the end of the tunnel.


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