NEW DELHI: Information and Broadcasting Minister Ambika Soni said today that she has raised the issue of exemption from counterveiling duty (CVD) for unexposed colour films with Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee, a demand the film industry has been raising for well over two decades.
Soni was assuring a high-level delegation from the film industry led by Film Federation of India (FFI) president Jitendra Jain.
Soni also said that she would shortly initiate steps to fight software piracy, which was doing incalculable harm to the industry.
The unexposed negatives are not produced within the country, but the industry still has been paying CVD. Though this was removed in 2002, it was re-imposed in 2004 at the rate of 16 per cent.
The minister also said that in her meeting with Mukherjee, she had stressed the need for parity in taxation amongst all media. She also assured the delegation that she had raised the issue of exemption from service tax to the film industry.
FFI secretary general Supran Sen told indiantelevision.com that the minister had also indicated that relief was expected in fringe benefit tax for the film industry, which had to pay huge FBT in the matter of booking of hotels, travel, food etc. even while traveling for professional work.
He said as the meeting related to budgetary demands, the minister agreed to take up separately the demand seeking relief on remittances abroad under Section 195B of the Income Tax Act as these are for professional work or hiring foreign technicians.
The delegation comprised Sushma Shiromanee, L Suresh, Sakshi Mehra, Ramesh Mehra, Ajay Sarpotdar, S Vidhani and Rajinder Singh among others.
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