Star cricket stumped on funds pledge

HYDERABAD: Six months back Telugu film stars traded their greasepaint with the willow and the cherry and played under the floodlights for a cause: to help their aged and needy brethren. They raised Rs 1.31 crore.
The charity story ends there. The Movie Artistes’ Association (MAA), which organised the benefit match, has still not disbursed the charity.
However, the MAA did not get the entire Rs 1.31 crore, which was generated from the all-star match.Instead, it got only Rs 80 lakh. The rest, a whopping Rs 51 lakh,went towards organising the event.
The Rs 51 lakh expenditure is huge considering that the stars were not even paid a dime, as it was a benefit match.
When quizzed how the expenditure could be so huge, MAA general secretary P K Mallikarjun Rao said the amount also included a 16 per cent commission paid to event managers ‘Rhythm’. Mallikarjun, however, added that the MAA had deducted Rs 1.25 lakh commission from the amount paid to Rhythm because it could not keep its commitment of organising a laser show after the match.
About 30 artistes have applied for monetary help from MAA and are still awaiting the dole. Only this month, MAA constituted a welfare committee to select beneficiaries.
“We have already helped one artiste, Malladi Satyanarayana,who needed immediate help,� MAA president M Murali Mohan told The Times of India.
The MAA proposes to help artistes from the interest accruing from the Rs 80 lakh, which has been placed in a fixed deposit. A 13-member welfare committee headed by veteran actor Akkineni Nageswara Rao will select the beneficiaries. The other artistes in the committee include Chiranjeevi, Venkatesh, Balakrishna, NTR Jr., Uday Kiran, Srikanth, Srihari, Sivakrishna, Jeevitha, Jaya Sudha and Vijaya Nirmala.
Encouraged by the response, Telugu movie artistes have decided to play two more matches to raise funds. “The matches are being planned in Singapore and Malaysia,� Mallikarjun Rao said. Murli Mohan