Daler Mehndi with his newly hiked rate has become the highest paid singer in the Bollywood music industry presently. He has hiked his rate per song to a mind boggling Rs. 5 lakhs!

Daler's in his justification of the same states, "I have a 90% hit ratio where film songs are concerned. Irrespective of the film becoming a hit or not most of my songs have become extremely popular with the masses as well as the classes.

"I have realized when a film becomes a huge musical hit, the singers, especially very popular singers like me are never passed on the benefit for the same. Plus I want to create a niche market for myself. I don't want to sing for any film that comes my way. I would love to work with only those big filmmakers who can afford my price. But looking at the kind of offers I am getting nowadays I don't think so my big price is being a hurdle at all!"

But isn't such a high price only worth for veteran singers of a caliber like Lata Mangeshkar and Asha Bhosle?

"With due respect to their extremely high talent and their seniority, I am also having my share of huge popularity across the globe. My songs are loved everywhere and my private albums have been very popular." replies Daler.

"With big corporate giants funding mega budget films, now every one related to the film worth his talent wants to take advantage and extract his pound of flesh and Daler is no exception." quoted a music director who is presently judging a famous singing reality show.

In today's times a regular singer like Shaan or a KK get somewhere around 25-40 thousand rupees per song depending on the banner. Sonu Nigam too has started demanding Rs 2 lakh plus per song now. -Sampurn