THE Tamil film industry, which even a few months back considered English titles for their films as fancy, has suddenly developed a new found love for Tamil as a language. But, in reality, it is turning out to be more out of love for money than on the language itself. And the industry is laughing is all the way to the bank.
Many Tamil political and linguists leaders were up in arms against the Tamil film industry for having English titles for Tamil films like ‘Red’, ‘King’, ‘Three Roses’, ‘Citizen’, ‘Chocolate’, and ‘Samurai’.... The present DMK government solved the whole issue in a jiffy. It simply decided to waive entertainment tax for films with Tamil titles.
Earlier, the film industry had to pay 15% of the ticket price in the case of urban markets and 10% in the case of rural segments as entertainment tax. Just by having a Tamil title for their film, they get to pocket this 15% and 10% as additional revenue, which could be shared by the producer, distributor and the exhibitor.
“While this will benefit the industry to a large extent, the state ex-chequer stands loose over Rs 50 crore per annum on account of this concession,” say sources in the state tax department.
One of the problems with government intervention in businesses is that it generally takes govt's attention away from what its supposed to be doing. The time and effort a government spends on these things have an opportunity cost. Amartya Sen once said that Indian government has been overactive where it should not have been active at all, and underactive where it should have been active. I guess we can add that government has been underactive in some areas because it has been overactive in others.
The one above is a good example. If a penny saved is a penny earned, a penny forgone is a penny spent. Imagine what it could have done with Rs 50 crore - how many primary health centres, how many schools!
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