Bhubaneswar: The show must go on, but owners of the state's popular jatra troupes have announced that the show cannot continue for lack of financial viability and government support.

The announcement threatens to draw curtains on the popular form of entertainment from the season beginning August 1. The decision of the Jatra Owners' Association, a body of 23 troupes, has pushed to the edge the future of 30,000 artistes and their families.

The announcement comes at a time when the Naveen Patnaik government has announced "Mukhyamantri Kalakara Sahayta Yojana" to help artistes, especially in the form of pensions.

The art form is so popular that a senior minister in the Naveen Patnaik government, Pradeep Maharathy, and local media baron, Soumya Ranjan Patnaik, own troupes. Reacting to the crisis, Patnaik said: "It is not possible to run the shows any more due to the rising maintenance cost."

Maharathy, who owns the Kalinga Gananatya group, said: "Earlier we used to do 300 stage shows every year. But due to a slew of factors, including non-cooperation of the district administrations, we are not able to stage even for 200 shows a year."

Citing the lack of government support as major hindrance to stage the shows, he said: "The administration cancels permission at the last moment citing some odd reason. This hurts our business"

This, he said, also sparks off law and order problems. In a step that the owners say is affecting their business, district administrations of Cuttack, Puri and Bargarh disallow staging shows at these places. The apparent reason is some law and order issue that had happened in the past.

This is where the government can help by paving way for more shows, said a jatra artiste. Maharathy and Patnaik echoed similar sentiments. They said the association was open to a discussion with the state government on the issue.

"I will take up the matter with the culture minister on Thursday and urge him to intervene keeping the larger interests of the jatra world in mind."

However, they did not disclose what would be their specific demands if the state government agrees to talk.

Association chief Patnaik said: "As the cost of maintaining the troupes has increased over the years, the price of tickets had to be hiked. Ten years back, the price for a show was Rs 40, but now a ticket costs Rs 150. With the state's agricultural economy in bad shape, the rural audience is not in a position to pay such high price for tickets. This has affected our fortunes."

While the income of a jatra party hovers between Rs 2.5 crore and Rs 3 crore, its annual maintenance cost is nearly Rs 4 crore. Another jatra industry insider said: "As the artistes are demanding annual perks worth more than Rs 30 lakh, the owners are using these tactics to put pressure on them to scale down their salaries and negotiate. They should understand that it was not possible to give such huge salary to some artistes in times of poor business."

Respected jatra veteran Daitari Panda said: "It's an unfortunate decision, no one will be able to kill this popular form of entertainment."