Payments elude junior artistes for months

Hyderabad: Tollywood film industry is producing numerous movies each year and its viewer base has crossed boundaries. Though the lead protagonists and key persons of the movie steal the spotlight, these movies would not have been possible without the hardship of the entire film crew.

And junior artistes play a significant role in every movie. However, they are not receiving their due credit or respect. Though the junior artistes have been repeatedly complaining about the delay in the on thespot payments, their pleas are left unheard by the industry.

Decades ago, the Telugu Film Employees Federation made it compulsory for the spot payment to junior artistes. However, the agents fail to make payments promptly to the junior artistes. Sometimes, the artistes do not get payments even for three to four months

``We, the artistes come to the office at 5 am and the agents assign us work according to their requirement. Daily wage for junior artistes is Rs 360 and contingency fees Rs 100. This is the only source of income for most of us but we are not receiving the payments on time. Sometimes they even delay it by 3 to 4 months,” said Sunaina Vemulapalli, working as junior artiste for 28 years.

The Telugu Film Employees Federation (TFEF) has made the on thespot payment policy compulsory decades ago; yet the producers are not following it. ``Though the producer does not pay the agent (who hired the artistes) promptly, the agent is supposed to pay the artistes for the day.

If he refuses to do so, the artistes can take the issue to the Junior Artistes Union and the union will bring it to the federation’s notice,” says Rajeshwar Reddy, former Secretary of TFEF. However, the Junior Artistes Union is headed by the `agents’ and it is one of the prime reasons for the issue to be unresolved.

Some artistes even claim that they are not respected on the sets of shooting; ``We are the first and last ones on the sets. If anything is missing from the sets, we are the first ones to be questioned about the item; yet we go to the shoot everyday because we want to thrive in this industry,” said Mahesh, junior artiste, who works in multiple languages. Majority of these artistes are not highly educated and according to them they cannot survive in any other profession.

When asked about the delay in payments, Raj Kandukuri, Tollywood film Producer said, ``Some producers do delay the payments and I have my genuine sympathy with the junior artistes, as they go through hardships and their struggle is real. Sometimes even the agent does not give the wages to the artiste though he/she receives the amount from the producer. There are many reasons to this but I have always paid the artistes promptly and in my production, this has never happened.”

By Tera Sneha Reddy