Crisis in Academy of Art, Culture and Languages

 

The working “culture” of the Academy of Art, Culture and Languages is all pointing to mismanagement, non-performance, overall mess and not attending to important issues concerning the artists. It is learnt that adequate funds are not being provided to the Academy which has resulted in the Academy being not even in a position to purchase sundry items for official daily use which all are being managed by the officials from personal contribution as the management has failed to convince the concerned authorities about the issue. There is no concern to preserve and maintain pieces of art, most of those being sensitively important. There was every apprehension that such pieces of art would get damaged, defaced and rendered of no value. Even the building is developing signs of dilapidation which needs immediate repairs. As if all these problems were any less, some portion of the land belonging to the Academy stands encroached upon by some people from the nearby Krishna Nagar side after breaking the boundary wall which is not reportedly being “permitted” by the encroachers to be rebuilt and the concerned authorities are doing nothing about that. The casual but unwarranted attitude towards looking after this institution can be found in not even required periodic trimming of grass and removing of wild growth at the lawns outside Abhinav Theatre is attended to and sculptures standing there are not properly maintained. There is no annual report on performance list of the Academy towards promoting art, culture and languages which denotes that no one knows actually what for hefty salaries the ones helming the institution were drawing. There was no grain of any accountability with regard to performance. The UT Government needed to revamp the Academy and put it on rails of performance, working results commensurate with salaries received by the officials and proper accountability.