No compromise on law & order: CM

Hyderabad: One does not know what the Telugu film industry leaders were expecting from their much-hyped meeting with Chief Minister A Revanth Reddy on Thursday, but they found at the end that the Chief Minister meant business.

Revanth made it clear to the film fraternity that there would be no compromise on law and order in the state and that it applies to everyone, including the film fraternity. He told them that a cabinet sub-committee would be constituted to resolve the problems of the film industry and suggested that they too form an in-house panel.

The film industry bigwigs were led by ace producer and Telangana Film Development Corporation (FDC) Chairman Venkata Ramana Reddy (Dil Raju).

The meeting between the CM and the film personalities that was held at the Police Integrated Command Control Centre here gained importance and generated curiosity in the wake of the recent arrest of Pushpa 2 actor Allu Arjun following the unfortunate incident at Sandhya Theatre in which a 35-year-old woman died in a stampede on December 4.

Revanth is said to have told them that as the Chief Minister, it was his responsibility to enforce the laws. “I do not have any personal preferences. Let us all develop the film industry together without confining ourselves to Telugu only. Government is ready to extend all possible support to the film industry,” Revanth believed to have told the film industry delegation.

Asserting that the film industry is as important to the government as the IT and pharma sectors, Revanth said his government is considering organising a major convention to encourage other film industries to come to the city. "Our intention is to take the (Telugu film) industry to the next level," the sources quoted the CM as saying. He also pointed out that the film industry should remember its social responsibility and join the efforts to check drugs and other societal problems.

Dil Raju said that besides Telugu movies, shooting of movies of other languages, including Hindi, Tamil and Kannada, are also happening in the city.

According to sources, Revanth asked them to give suggestions to the government to see that, not only Indian films but also Hollywood films are shot in Hyderabad. Asked for government’s stance on allowing benefit shows and hiking ticket prices on special occasions, Dil Raju said that they are only a ‘small part’ of the issue and that the bigger vision is how to take Telugu cinema to the international level and to make Hyderabad city an ‘international film hub’. “Time would throw light on all that,” he said.

The delegation included actors Nagarjuna, Venkatesh, Murali Mohan and directors Trivikram Srinivas, K Raghavendra Rao and producers Daggubati Suresh, Allu Aravind (father of Allu Arjun) and C Kalyan.