Shilpa Shetty and Raj Kundra’s home shopping channel ‘Best Deal TV’ shuts down, company yet to pay employees.
Reeling from losses due to demonetisation, Best Deal TV suspended its services a couple of months back, and hasn’t resumed yet. Now the employees of the company allege that their dues haven’t been cleared.
The home shopping portal is owned by Bollywood actress Shilpa Shetty and her husband Raj Kundra. Its also rumoured that Akshay Kumar was also one of the partners (their twitter link shows Akshay’s photo).
Raj Kundra had sent his resignation via email on December 15. “I would like to officially resign as CEO of Best Deal TV. All good things come to an end, I guess”.
Also Read: Is Raj Kundra’s monthly income more than what Salman Khan earns from a Movie?
Around the same time, the employees were intimated that the company was going to cut their salaries by 50 percent, prompting several employees to put in their papers.
However, an insider had a different reason to give: “Production was stopped on November 1, almost a week before the government’s note ban announcement. How can demonetisation be the reason? We were paid for half of November but are yet to receive salaries for the remaining month-and-a-half. We’ve made several attempts to reach out to them, but haven’t got a response. Most of us are jobless and barely managing to support our families.”
Hari Trivedi, COO, Best Deal TV, claims November salaries, and December payments of select workers, have been made. “If they are complaining about receiving only half the amount, it is wrong. We had communicated about the 50 per cent pay cut, which has been imposed across the board, in writing. The company has 90 days to make the full and final settlement. So technically, we have time till March 31 to clear outstanding dues”.
For those who’re not aware what a home shopping channel is, these are niche television channels that broadcast product demonstrations, and are aimed towards home shoppers/consumers.
