Event & Entertainment Mgmt Association writes to PM; seeks support amid pandemic

In a letter to the prime minister, the industry body has sought his help as nearly 97 per cent of its members are broke and badly need to raise capital or debt to survive.
PM Narendra Modi (Photo| ANI)
PM Narendra Modi (Photo| ANI)

MUMBAI: The Event & Entertainment Management Association (EEMA) has written to Prime Minister Narendra Modi seeking his intervention to revive the events management industry that has been crippled by the coronavirus-induced disruptions.

In a letter to the prime minister, the industry body has sought his help as nearly 97 per cent of its members are broke and badly need to raise capital or debt to survive.

"We wrote to the Prime Minister on May 27, seeking his intervention to revive the events management industry as we are bursting at the seams with almost no revenue for more than a year now.

"During April-October of 2020, we were completely shut, We began work from last November but by February 2021 again we were thrown back to the brink," Roshan Abbas, the president of EEMA, told PTI on Wednesday.

He said the association has over 1,000 registered members who have retrenched 50 to 80 per cent of their workforce since last April.

In the letter, the association said that since all big-scale events are being cancelled or indefinitely postponed, the industry is looking at 100 per cent revenue loss now.

"Of the 1 crore people we employ, around 90 per cent of them are daily wagers and all of them are impacted," it added.

The industry body has urged the government to give 50 per cent of salaries to EEMA employees for a year as well as defer all statutory liabilities for one year.

Other demands include GST refunds for three years, two-year moratorium on loans and overdrafts, give corporates 200 per cent weighted exemption on expenses for all domestic events, make availability of working capital loans easier and interest waiver for one year.

The events management industry was worth around Rs 5 lakh crore in FY20, and employed over 1 crore people, around 90 per cent of them migrants, before the pandemic.

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