All work and no pay!

It’s a clear case of all work and no pay. After several television artistes complained about non-payment of dues over the past six months, the Artists Forum is currently busy intervening in the matter. Reportedly, five serials by Rana Sarkar and a TV series, Bhumikanya, by Arindam Sil, came under the scanner after several artistes claimed that their remunerations have not been cleared by the respective production houses.And this has been going on for months now. While one of Rana’s serials went off air, the rest changed hands and went to other production houses. Bhumikanya, starring quite a few well-known faces including Sohini Sarkar, Anirban Bhattacharya and Kaushik Sen, which came on TV with a lot of promise, was taken off air sometime back. Arindam Ganguly of Artists Forum said he’s trying to sort things out by talking to all parties. “We are looking into the complaints. The major complaints of non-payment are directed at Rana Sarkar. Some of the serials have gone to other production houses and we have even spoken to the concerned channels. Mutually, we decided upon a stipulated period within which the dues will be cleared. While the first lot of payments will be done by April 15, the second instalment will come by May 15. We have made a list of artistes who are yet to be paid and sent it to all the concerned channels,” he told us. Incidentally, artistes also complained that Rana was not traceable. Arindam, who was at a meeting, said he would get back to us. Meanwhile, fingers have been raised at another producer, Subrata Roy, who is yet to clear the dues of artistes.