10 November,2016 11:20 AM IST | | Shaheen Parkar
The sudden announcement to make big currency notes invalid has hit vendors in the television world hard. They include transport, lights, set and food suppliers, often paid on a daily shift basis unlike actors and technicians, who receive monthly remuneration
A still from Yeh Rishta Kya Kehlata Hai
A still from Yeh Rishta Kya Kehlata Hai
The sudden announcement to make big currency notes invalid has hit vendors in the television world hard. They include transport, lights, set and food suppliers, often paid on a daily shift basis unlike actors and technicians, who receive monthly remuneration.
Production folk did not know how to pay unit hands since there were not enough notes of the denomination which would now be legally accepted - usually, payments are made through R500 and R1,000 notes.
Says Rajan Shahi, producer of Yeh Rishta Kya Kehlata Hai, "I started getting phone calls soon after the announcement was made and rushed to Film City where we have three sets. There was anxiety, but unit hands helped each other out. But what's important, they had money to go home at night and return to sets the next day."
He explains, in a daily, long-running soap like his there is a lot of carryover, so sometimes payments are not made daily. "When the suppliers have been with you for years, there's mutual trust. Thanks to the media, they knew exactly what was happening and why."
Shahi shares how an actor of his show did not have his car and had to take an autorickshaw home. "He called to say that he did not have the right denomination to pay the fare."
Producer Rahul Kumar Tewary, whose show Karamphaldata Shani went on air on Monday, says, "The announcement came towards the end of day, just when shifts were ending. The daily set workers were in a fix; they wondered what will happen to their payments."
Most producers did not make payments on Tuesday night and yesterday as well since banks were closed. "But people understood that these short term difficulties were for long-term benefits; it is a pro India measure," adds Tewary. "The petty cash transactions on our sets in Umargaon in Gujarat were affected as well as payments to transport and generator units which could be around R30,000 to R40,000 per day. We have a combination of daily and fixed hands on sets, so there were no R100 notes to pay the daily staff."
