Panel to decide on sops for Tamil name flicks

CHENNAI: After tightening the rules for obtaining tax concession for films named in Tamil, the State government has formed a 25-member committee, including 22 veteran film personalities, to decide whether the films named in Tamil are genuinely worthy of tax concession.The veteran film personalities include; actors V S Raghavan and Senthil; actresses M N Rajam, Rajashree, SN Lakshmi, So-wcar Janaki and Rajasulochana; playback singers A L Raghavan, Vani Jaya-ram, L R Eswari, K S Chitra and T L Maharajan; film directors A Jagannathan, C V Rajendran, R V Udhayakumar and P Va-su; film producers R B Ch-oudhary, K T Kunjumon; cameramen Verma and Babu; music director Sankar Ganesh and film journalist Ramji.Four members of the 25-member committee — two men and two women — will be appointed to view each film.  Producers seeking tax concession would have to pay a fee of `10,000 and screen the film for these four members. Tax concession will be given based on the majority opinion of the members who view the film, the Government order said.This tax concession was introduced during the previous DMK regime in July 2006. After four months, the concession was extended to even old films. The concession was also extended to those who have the legal rights of the film. After AIADMK assumed office in May 2011, a committee was formed to examine whether films named in Tamil were really worthy of tax concession.Based on the committee’s recommendations, the government tightened the conditions for the concession, which include: receiving ‘U’ certificate, the film’s theme should be suited to Tamil culture and language, and most of the dialogues of the film should be in Tamil except for certain scenes where use of foreign languages is a must. The film would become ineligible if violent and sexual content is in excess.