The Hindu

• KCCI estimates loss at Rs. 200 crore KCCI estimates loss at Rs. 200 crore 
• Loss incurred by stores at the mall is put at Rs. 1.25 crore
• Cinemas may follow a truncated schedule depending on orders

Mangalore, Oct 10: Events in the past five days in the city have cast their shadow on trade and industry. Industrialists have been loud in their criticism of a chain of incidents, which forced the administration to clamp curfew on the city since Saturday.

Counting their losses with the rest of trade and industry is the entertainment industry

Some of the major film releases scheduled have all been delayed. Weekend is also the time when most cinemas do good business.

K. Shankar Pai, secretary, Dakshina Kannada Cinema Exhibitors Association, told The Hindu that the main problem faced by most exhibitors was that they had no turnover to repay the amount obtained from financial institutions. "Most businessmen, including cinema exhibitors run their units on loan amounts. A total shutdown means we are not even in a position to pay the interest," he said.

Normal schedule

Asked if cinemas in the city would start functioning from Tuesday, Mr. Pai said the association at its recent meeting had decided to maintain a normal schedule if the public transport system was normal.

However, in the present context, cinemas may follow a truncated schedule depending on orders of the district administration, he said.

Worst hit by the shutdown has been the multiplex at Bejai housed in Bharat Mall. The sources said that while the multiplex incurred a loss of Rs. 10 lakh over the last few days, the loss suffered by various stores in the mall such as Big Bazaar and the multiplex since Thursday is Rs. 1.25 crore. Observing that governments have given five-year tax holidays to big budget projects including for setting up malls in other states, sources said the State Government had not provided similar concession to mall projects in the State.

The malls were particularly dependent on their daily turnover to keep the project going.

Huge losses

The losses from a prolonged shutdown such as this one were huge and undesirable, sources added.

The Kanara Chamber of Commerce and Industry too has estimated the daily loss from the shutdown at approximately Rs. 35 crore to Rs. 40 crore.

If one goes by the estimate of KCCI, the loss since Thursday was nearly Rs. 200 crore.

This did not include the losses to private and public property, which according to sources in the Police Department is estimated to be Rs. 1 crore.