THERE THEY GO AGAIN!
IT sure doesn’t take much to enthuse our filmfolk. That fact was driven home to us all over again, last week, when Sushma Swaraj, the current incumbent in the information and broadcasting ministry, visited Mumbai. Much the same people who derided the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industries (FICCI), and questioned its motives in taking up cudgels on behalf of showbiz, were seen unabashedly attending its latest do — a meeting of industry folk with the minister. And sure enough, Swaraj appeared all too eager to please them all, gleefully hugging most of them as if they were her longlost kin.

So what’s come of the meet? Another notification that apparently promises much but delivers precious little, much like the industry status announced for moviedom more than two years ago. This time, the government has announced recognition for the entertainment industry under the IDBI Act, 1964, which means that every activity in showbiz has now been formally approved as part of the general list of industrial concerns.

At the interactive meet, last week, at which Yashwant Sinha, the union finance minister was also present, the finance ministry issued the notification. Getting approval under the IDBI Act signifies that, henceforth, the industry can access loans and every facility available to other industries. A finance ministry official even suggested that thus far, the only reason bank finance hasn’t been forthcoming for showbiz was that the IDBI Act had remained a stumbling block.
The euphoria with which the notification has been greeted by our filmfolk reminds one of the celebrations that followed the announcement of industry status in May 1998. They forget that little has changed for the industry since then, status or no status. The reason? Industry status is a state subject, over which the centre has little or no jurisdiction. The centre, at best, can only issue a formal letter of recognition, while most of the benefits accruing to industry are actually under the purview of the states. The fanfare, notwithstanding, none of the states have extended any of these benefits to showbiz, yet.

NOW FOR THE FINEPRINT
NOW, that the IDBI recognition is finally here for showbiz, loans will be readily forthcoming from the Industrial Development Bank of India, or so the notification promises us. But will they? Approach the IDBI for loans, and you’ll soon realise that the ground rules for loan disbursements haven’t changed at all.

Assessments will be made strictly on merit, track record as a corporate entity and transparency. How many of our filmmakers do you reckon will pass this test? Hardly a few. What’s more, those that do aren’t the sort who’d need bank loans the most. And sadly, the ones that are in dire need of bank funding are hardly likely to get past the first hurdle.

Again, we’re told that with the IDBI showing the way, it will only be a matter of time before other financial institutions such as the ICICI and IFCI, both of which are companies under the Companies Act, also jump into the fray. Here, too, the optimism will soon prove to be naive and misplaced, for neither the ICICI nor IFCI will be any more lenient in the disbursement of loans than the IDBI. Ask those who sought loans with the nationalised banks in recent times, only to come away sadder and wiser.

The fact of the matter is, financial institutions do not function purely with a charity motive. Profits and the bottomline are as important to them as to the neighbourhood loan shark, because they are answerable to their investors. The only difference may well lie only in the matter of interest rates.

With films continuing to fall like nine pins at the turnstiles, the outlook is pretty bleak. The IDBI and the other FIs can hardly be expected to overlook the trend of flops at the box-office. Mark our words: never mind what their sales pitch tells us, they aren’t desperate to bail out all our resource crunch-hit filmmakers.

Before long, our filmmakers will again realise they’d sung all their paeans in praise of Sushma Swaraj way too early. The IDBI recognition, like the industry status she’d doled out in 1998, isn’t even worth the paper it’s printed on, at least for the majority of our filmmakers. We hope we’re proved wrong.


Shaju George Alex