Several Bollywood biggies including Shah Rukh Khan, Salman Khan, Aamir Khan, Akshay Kumar, Ajay Devgan, Hrithik Roshan, Ranbir Kapoor and others have agreed in-principle to the appeal by the Film and TV Producers Guild.
Producer Mukesh Bhatt, the Guild's vice president, is hopeful that the new arrangement will be effective from next week, noting it was too much of a burden on the movie makers to bear the expenses of the support staff of the stars.
Apart from paying the actors' remuneration, producers have to shell out money for the personal staff of an actor/actress that they bring on the film sets including their hair stylists, makeup artistes, spot boys, drivers and personal trainers, on an everyday basis.
"We (producers) cannot carry the burden of expenses that the staff charge. There have been times when the staff members of actors have charged exorbitant fees. They were unreasonable," Bhatt told PTI.
According to Bhatt, make-up artistes and hair dressers have been asking for Rs 40,000-50,000 a day, while some drivers and spot boys were demanding Rs 5,000-15,000 a day.
"We need to curtail these expenses. We learnt that actors were also not aware about the amount charged by their staff. They (staff) used to take advantage by asking for more fees. It was an unfortunate malpractice... Hence it was important to have a regulation on this," Bhatt said.
"We are happy that the stars have understood and agreed to our suggestion. No one opposed it. Stars have understood that it is their (the expenses of their staff) responsibility and they need to handle it," producer Kumar Taurani said.
Now as most actors have agreed, Bhatt said he will start meeting the actresses to put forth the suggestion.
"We have only met Katrina Kaif till now and she graciously understood things and is in support of us. We would soon start meeting other actress," Bhatt said.
