Monday, November 21, 2016

Akademies Likely to Be in For a Culture Shock

Akademies Likely to Be in For a Culture Shock

Culture min readies terms of engagement; review of memorandums of association envisages better accountability for autonomous organisations

The culture ministry is preparing new terms of engagement with all autonomous cultural akademies in its bid to curtail their `discretionary powers' and bring in more checks and balances, a year after it took over the administration of the Lalit Kala Akademi amid charges of irregularities. Various cultural akademies have come on the PMO radar, with a meeting late last month by the PMO to review them.

The culture ministry is quietly putting together a plan to review the Memorandums of Associations with all cultural akademies organisations that it funds. The first off the block will be Lalit Kala Akademi and the new MoA being drafted for it is being envisaged as a model MoA. This model MoA aims at bringing in better accountabili ty across the autonomous organisations, a ministry insider told ET.

The move also comes at a time when the finance ministry has asked all government departments and ministries to assess all funded autonomous institutions under them and review the applicability of user charges there.

There are a number of autonomous cultural organisations -akademies, museums, libraries and cultural centres -under the aegis of the culture ministry and most are fully funded by it.

The functions of the organisation are set down in the MoA. The government feels the scope of discretionary powers given to the organisation through the existing MoA is not adequately balanced through better accountability mechanisms. Many of these organisation are even caught in legal tussles due to these issues, sources said.
The MoA typically grants the akademi substantial independence in taking decisions related to national and international exhibitions, events as well as providing financial assistance to artists and art organisations through scholarships and grants.

Among the prominent akademies under the ministry are Lalit Kala Akademi, Sahitya Aakdemi, Sangeet Natak Akademi and the National School of Drama.

The Lalit Kala Akademi has been most in news. The ministry took over the administration of the Akademi on April 1, 2015, citing complaints of administrative and financial irregularities.

While a joint secretaryadditio nal secretary from the ministry has held charge of the Akademi so far, recently, the ministry appoin ted a new administrator for it -an arrangement that could last until 2018 if the government does not go ahead with a full-fledged selection process to reinstall the usual ad ministrative structure.

Source | Economic TImes | 22 November 2016

Regards

Pralhad Jadhav

Senior Manager @ Library
Khaitan & Co                                                                    

Blog | http://pralhad-fyilibrarian.blogspot.in/

No comments:

Post a Comment