Insurance companies are expected to join the working group on film financing set up to finalise the modalities of lending to the film industry.
Officials who attended the first meeting of the working group felt the group would be incomplete without insurance companies. Banks had told film industry representatives that they would feel comfortable financing films if they had already been insured.
Chaired by Bank of Baroda chairman and managing director K Kannan, the working group consists of representatives of the Indian Banks Association (IBA) and the film industry.
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They are expected to finalise their report by October and present it to information and broadcasting minister Sushma Swaraj.
Sources said that the next round of talks, expected in early September, may include representatives from the insurance industry.
"Informal discussions between bankers, film industry representatives and insurance companies are expected in the next round," they said. Welcoming the participation of insurance companies, GIC assistant general manager S K Mahapatra said no one had yet approached them. "Film producers should come up with what they want to get insured. Only then insurance companies can customise products to meet their requirements," he added.
Meanwhile, the government is yet to confirm industry status to films on paper.
"We have nothing in writing to prove that we are officially an industry," sources in the Film Federation of India said.
The working group was constituted to encourage interface between bankers and the film industry to facilitate a better understanding of the film business which banks are proposing to finance.
In the first and the only round of talks held so far, there were said to be differences among committee members over the representation given to the film industry.
"It was therefore decided that whoever in the industry so wants can approach the group with a write-up and make a presentation before it", sources said.
"We have to understand the risk involved in financing a film. We have requested the film industry to give us a write-up on what exactly goes into the making of a film", they added.