The building of Barisal Shilpakala Academy, a 48-year-old cultural institute to aid local art and culture, is almost in ruins due to mismanagement and negligence.
The academy has had an inactive management committee since 1996. Its activities, if any, have been taking place in rented space around to city, said Harunor Rashid Maksud, cultural officer of the academy.
While visiting the academy, this reporter found the dilapidated building to have become a safe haven for drug addicts and dealers. The courtyard and surrounding area are now being used by the academy staff for fish farming.
The cultural officer also admitted that the staff had turned the area surrounding the academy into a fish farm due to a lack of activity on the premises.
Sultana Yasmin, computer in-charge of the academy, said the Cultural Ministry had sanctioned Tk4 crore in 2007 for the construction of a new academy building.
However, that project never took off and the fund remained unused following a dispute between the academy and the district council over the ownership of land, she said.
Advocate Manabendra Batobayal, central committee member of Bangladesh Shilpaka Academy, said the inactivity of management committee, negligence of bureaucrats in performing duties and the academy’s detachment from the local cultural arena have rendered the building almost abandoned and the organisation mostly inoperative.
Manabendra said a meeting in this regard was held at Shilpakala in the capital last week, where it was decided that a modern building of Shilpakala Academy at every divisional city would be constructed with two auditoriums, two rehearsal rooms, two green rooms, two dressing rooms, guest houses, stage, modern lighting equipment and seating arrangement, offices and other facilities, at the estimated cost of Tk24 crore.
Dr Mokhlesur Rahman, administrator of Barisal District council and former district president of Awami League, said they also wanted the academy’s development to improve the local cultural environment.
The dispute over the ownership of land could be resolved only by inter-ministry coordination, not at district level, he added.
In 1966, the then Pakistan government founded the Art Council in Barisal in a one-storey building on 99 decimal of land near the bank of Kirtankhola River. It was renamed Barisal Shilpakala Academy after independence.