CHENNAI : Chief Minister Jayalalithaa on Thursday urged Tamil moviemakers and artists to be innovative in approach and ensure that new ideas acquired were incorporated in their creations.

Shortly before presenting the awards for the best feature films and to artists, technicians and veterans adjudged the best for 2003 and 2004, she said cinema personalities should realise that art was not for art's sake or for the artists, but was meant for the people. They should perform their social responsibility of guiding society even while bringing cheers.

Artists could earn but the biggest recognition for them was appreciation of their talent, she said. The Government was distributing the awards to make them feel happy and contented.

She recalled various measures taken by her Government to rejuvenate the industry, which had been on the verge of collapse.

Referring to the decision to increase the subsidy for quality low budget Tamil feature films from Rs. 5 lakh to Rs. 7 lakh, she said the amount would be disbursed on Friday. She also promised to institute awards for television programmes from next year.

Ms. Jayalalithaa referred to veterans including playback singers T.M. Soundararajan, M.S. Rajeswari and the late P. Leela, comedian of yesteryears T.P.Muthulakshmi, directors K. Shankar and Yoganand, who had made unforgettable contributions to cinema.

She had come to know that these film personalities, despite their lifetime achievements, had not been chosen for the awards. As she thought that the accolades would lose their significance if they were not conferred on these artists, their names were included, she said.

She hugged playback singer and recipient of Arignar Anna Award P.Suseela and kissed her cheeks. A total of 89 persons including Sheela, T.K.Ramamurthy, V.S.Raghavan, K.R.Vijaya, B.Lenin, Bharathi Raja, Vikram, Laila, Srikanth, Vivek, Sarada, S.Janaki, Lakshmi, Jyotika, Cheran, S.P.Balasubramaniam, Vani Jayaram and Radha Ravi received the awards.

`Veteran awards' named after the late Chief Ministers C.N.Annadurai and M.G.Ramachandran and film personalities `Kalaivanar' N.S.Krishnan, Sivaji Ganesan were presented. Awards were also named after Thiagaraja Bhagavathar and Kannadasan.

Information Minister K.P.Anbalagan, and Secretary (Information and Tourism) V.Varaprasada Rao also spoke.

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