Tri-party meet decides to discuss Film Industry Bill broadly

Kathmandu, Dec 1: The demand for the withdrawal of the Film Bill, which is under discussion in the Legislation Management Committee of the National Assembly (NA), has prompted a decision to hold a tri-party meeting.

During today’s meeting among the Committee, the government, and concerned stakeholders, participants called for the bill to be taken back.

In the meeting, Minister for Communication and Information Technology, Jagdish Kharel, proposed summoning tri-party discussions to clarify the stakeholders’ concerns and to discuss the dissenting issues broadly. According to the Minister, retracting the bill and starting from the scratch would not be an appropriate idea. He also urged the Committee to work towards ensuring productive results on the bill.

In response, Committee President Tulasha Kumari Dahal said the Committee had already held discussions with nine related organisations, while some organisations were collectively demanding that the Bill be retracted.

In the next meeting, representatives from the Nepal Film Producers' Association, Nepal Motion Pictures Association, Film Artistes Association of Nepal, Federation of Indigenous Nationalities Film, Nepal Film Directors Guild of Nepal, among others, will have participation.

Censorship, the autonomy of the Film Board, loan facilities under the industry category, and health insurance are among their major concerns regarding the Bill, Dahal informed. She added that working on the Bill from the very beginning by withdrawing the proposed draft would result in additional cost and time.

There has also been debate over which ministry should oversee the film industry. According to Minister Kharel, the arguments for placing the film industry under the Ministry of Tourism or the Ministry of Industry seem impractical.

However, since scriptwriting, pre-production, production, technical aspects, post-production, and broadcasting are all directly related to communications, the Minister said it is appropriate to keep the film industry under the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology, he said. (RSS)