PMO for review of cultural bodies

Concerned that the various akademies and other institutions under the culture ministry had been too busy dealing with controversies to fulfill even their basic mandate, the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) has decided to intervene and called for a review of their working.

In a meeting held recently with the Central Advisory Board on Culture (CABA), set up to guide the ministry in the ‘national mission on culture’ over the next few years, the PMO has asked the ministry to look into how these institutions worked and to suggest a corrective roadmap for the future. 

The four academies – Lalit Kala Akademi, Sahitya Akademi, Sangeet Natak Akademi and the National School of Drama (NSD) – along with institutions like the Nehru Memorial Museum and Library (NMML)  and the Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts are central to the government’s cultural push, be it in art, theatre, music or academics. 

With culture being an area of particular interest for the government, those who attended the meeting observed that these autonomous bodies had in the past one-and-a-half years wasted precious man hours in creating and dealing with controversies, sources told DNA. “Despite the availability of funds, purchases of books and other basic requirements like computers and CCTV cameras that were to be procured could not be tendered,” said a CABA member.  

Shakti Sinha, the new director of NMML, welcomed the PMO’s intervention. “Any kind of review called by the government should be looked at as a healthy sigh. There is certainly a lot of scope for improvement. We welcome it,” he said.