Music composer Vanraj Bhatia to be aided by IPRS after veteran suffers from ill-health, lack of funds

Following a Mumbai Mirror article on veteran music composer Vanraj Bhatia's current ill-health and his less-than-sufficient economic state, filmmaker Sudhir Mishra took to social media and promised to talk to people about raising funds and aiding him through it all. Mishra reiterated that whatever was being done was in fact, not charity, but Bhatia's rightful due.

Vanraj Bhatia. Image from Twitter

After Mishra's tweet, the Indian Performing Right Society (IPRS) immediately got into action, with their chairman initiating funds for Bhatia's aid. IPRS is the only registered body which safeguards the requirements of all authors (lyricists), music composers and music publishers.

Check out their tweet

After taking prompt action, IPRS even stated that it would look into long-term plans to ensure financial and other stability to its members. Mishra also lauded the organisation's fast course of action.

The article, published earlier this week, gave a detailed insight into Bhatia's sorry state of affairs owing to his advanced age of 92 years. The veteran, hardly able to walk properly, could not get a proper diagnosis into his health issues due to lack of funds.

A proud winner of the National Award (for his work in Govind Nihalani’s TV series Tamas) and the Sangeet Natak Akademi Award, Bhatia's upkeep is now handled by distant relatives and foundations. The article also stated how the artiste had lost almost all of his life savings in a bout of rash stock market share trading.

Bhatia collaborated with iconic filmmaker Shyam Benegal on the soundtracks of nine films.