THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The Kerala Culture Welfare Board is launching e-ticket in over 500 theatres in the state from Tuesday. Each bar-coded ticket can be purchased online or directly from the theatre.
With this, theatre owners will not be able to manipulate the cess of Rs 3 for artistes in distress and tax worth crores of rupees. The software was developed by Keltron and Information Kerala Mission.
Tickets will be issued from a centralised server across the state and a filmgoer will have to swipe the ticket at the gates. KCWB chairman G. Suresh Kumar told DC that cinema minister Thiruvanchoor Radhakrishnan will launch the demonstration at Thycaud Guest House here at 11 a.m. on Tuesday.
“There has been no accountability until now on paying entertainment tax to corporation/municipality/panchayat for theatre owners. Local bodies and theatre owners have been hand-in-glove in this.
Though a cess of Rs 3 had to be collected from 500-odd theatres across the state from 2013 onwards, it is yet to be implemented. Once the e-ticket system is launched, this issue can be rectified,” said Mr. Kumar, who runs Revathy Kalamandir, a film production house.
He added that once the cess is collected, it will go to the welfare fund of artists comprising kathakali, dance, theatre and films.
Currently, 1700 such artists are getting a monthly pension of Rs 1,000 each. Once the cess comes regularly to the exchequer, the KCWB intends to increase it to Rs 3,000 per month and will launch dispensaries where they will be provided with free medicines.
However, the government move to launch e-ticketing from its own server will be a setback to the private online ticketing platforms. A theatre owner based in central Kerala told DC that he had been getting Rs 10 lakh a year from a private online ticketing site as security deposit.
“Currently, most of our staff are old who don’t know how to handle computers and we would have to shelve them. Once the ticketing machine is launched, our expenses will shoot up. On an average, the theatres’ cess collection would come to '10 lakh which would go to the Kerala State Film Development Corporation’s bank account,” said a theatre owner.
The theatres which have a seating capacity of over 500 would face issues with ticketing machines. He alleged that a Muslim League minister had a “hidden agenda” to implement the software before the ministry's tenure ends as his relative holds the licence.
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