FWICE bans Ram Gopal Varma

The Federation of Western India Cine Employees (FWICE) recently decided that none of their 32 unions will ever work with director Ram Gopal Varma in the future.

The director has been accused of not paying around Rs 1.25 crore to artistes, technicians and workers related to the film industry.

According to BN Tiwari, president of FWICE, Ashok Dubey, general secretary, and Gangeshwar Lal Srivastav (Sanju), treasurer, Ram Gopal Varma had already received a legal notice.

However, Ram Gopal Varma did not respond to the notice, nor did he clear the dues.

Ram Gopal Varma had received a letter from FWICE on September 17, 2020, which gave details of the technicians and their pending payments, which needed to be cleared by RGV.

Even prior to this notice the FWICE had written several letters to RGV asking him to clear the dues, however, RGV refused to accept delivery of the letters.

The FWICE also recently found out that Ram Gopal Varma was shooting in Goa for one of his projects, amid the novel coronavirus pandemic. BN Tiwari said, "We also sent a letter to the Chief Minister of Goa on September 10, 2020, regarding this.

We wanted Ram Gopal Varma to clear the dues of poor technicians, artistes and workers but he never did. Hence, we have decided to not work with him in the future.

We have also notified Indian Motion Pictures Producers' Association (IMPPA) and Producers Guild of India (GUILD), among other unions about this."