Kannada superstar Yash on Tuesday pledged to support more than 3,000 cine artistes, workers, technicians of Sandalwood by crediting a one-time payment of Rs 5,000 to each of their bank accounts. Yash's commitment is at Rs 1.5 crore, as per his tweet.
Yash is popularly known as Rocking Star and is the lead actor of multilingual hit franchise KGF. KGF Chapter 2 is ready for release, but due to COVID-19, this movie's release has been deferred indefinitely by its makers. Yash plays the lead role, while Bollywood superstar, Sanjay Dutt plays an antagonist's role in this movie. Its ensemble cast has evoked a lot of positive response among moviegoers. This is a multilingual franchise.
Taking to Twitter, Yash posted a message that read: "The COVID-19 has proved to be an invisible enemy that has dismantled the livelihoods of innumerable people across our country. My own Kannada film fraternity has been badly affected as well. Yes, these are not times to just talk, instead these are times where we have to stand with these families. So, to each of the 3,000 odd members, which includes all the 21 departments of our film fraternity, I will be donating from my earnings, a sum of Rs 5,000 to their personal accounts."
Yash further added that he had already spoken with the Kannada Film Union president, Sa Ra Govindu and the Union General Secretary Rabindranath. "Money will be transferred once the Union gives the bank details of our artists, technicians and workers. While this may not be the ultimate solution, it is only an effort to ease the pain of the technicians who are affected due to the lockdown," he concluded.
After the COVID-19 second wave hit the state in March 2020, the Kannada film industry came to a grinding halt. Kannada film industry work has come to stand still ever since the COVID-19 lockdown was enforced in 2020. Although the lockdown was lifted in a phased manner towards the end of 2020, the livelihood of daily-wage workers in the film industry have been affected.