Fans are excited to see Shraddha Kapoor and Ranbir Kapoor’s on-screen chemistry in Luv Ranjan’s next. The film has been making headlines for a while now, but this time it has gathered attention for all the wrong reasons. An unpleasant incident broke out on the sets of the film, at Mumbai’s Royal Palms in Goregaon, on March 15. Crew members, who had earlier worked on a song that was shot in October 2021 for this film at Mumbai’s Charkop area in Kandivali, entered the set and claimed that 350 people from their fraternity had not been paid to the tune of Rs 1.22 crore.
ETimes reported that following the chaos police were summoned, and led the agitated workers to Aarey Police Station. Later, the unions rushed to the station to get them released. A source told the entertainment portal that the agitation was not aggressive but still, it was chaos, in fact, pandemonium. Despite the hiccup, the shooting, however, continued once the workers were taken away in the police van.
In response to the complaint made by Film Studio Setting and Allied Mazdoor Union’s General Secretary Ganeshwarlal Shrivastav, Luv Films had earlier sent a letter to FWICE and other unions stating that they are not responsible for any non-payment. Luv Films asserted that they have given all the necessary payments in this regard to the hired Production Designer, Dipankar Das Gupta.
Dasgupta brushed away all the non-payment claims, stating that if he would have been at fault, he wouldn’t be shooting with Luv.
Dasgupta holds Jai Shankar and Gautam of Hyperlink responsible for the mess. The production designer stated that he had outsourced the project to a company called Hyperlink, from where two men, Jai Shankar and Gautam had made an agreement with him. However, much later they got to know that they have further outsourced it to a certain Prashant Vichare.
Dasgupta also claimed that both Jai Shankar and Gautam didn’t keep him in the loop. “I was told that they had gone over-budget by over Rs 1 crore. Is it possible that anybody would go over-budget by Rs 1 crore and not bring it to the notice of the people who are above him in that project?” he added.
Mentioning how the poor workers have got sandwiched, FWICE General Secretary Ashok Dubey opined that the outsourcing business should stop, and the workers should get paid by the producers directly. According to him, outsourcing only starts a blame game, which puts immense stress on workers.
