Students waiting for payment of Games work

They have been paid just Rs.80,000 for the murals at Chandrasekharan Nair stadium

A part of the mural work around the Chandrasekharan Nair stadium done by students of the Government Fine Arts College, Thiruvananthapuram, for the recent National Games.

For 38 days, 14 present and former students of the Government Fine Arts College here toiled their hearts out to spruce up the boundary walls along the inner periphery of the Chandrasekharan Nair stadium with murals on the State’s sporting and cultural history. Now, two weeks after the National Games, for which they had done all that work, they are still waiting for its full payment.

The paintings fill a total area of 17,316 sq ft along the entire boundary wall around the stadium. The students have been paid just Rs.80,000 for the entire work, which is just around half of the material cost incurred for paint, Rs.1.5 lakh. The stadium authorities had bought the paint for the work.

“The administrative officer of the stadium approached us through the college Principal to take up the work. Since, it was for the National Games, we did not think about a proper contract at that time. We were paid Rs.80,000 in instalments. At the time of paying the last instalment, they had said that they will release the rest of the money after discussions. But after that when we went there, they asked us not to come back and that we have been paid everything,” says Rajesh Ramachandran, one of the former students.

The students say that by current market standards, the rate for painting per square feet is Rs.250, but they expected only around Rs.120, which will make the total cost Rs.21 lakh. According to them, they were not even given any kind of support during the work. They had conceptualised the designs and carried out the whole work.

A.S. Sajith, Principal, says that the least that the students deserved is to be considered as professional artists.

“Even a small work on canvas costs a minimum of Rs.30,000 and these students have done the entire boundary wall. They deserve to be considered as more than just hoarding painters. They should have discussed and decided on the costs before starting the work to avoid such situations,” he says.

Jacob Punnoose, National Games Commissioner, says that the work was not commissioned by the Games organisers, but by the stadium authorities. “The students have done some good work there and they deserve the payment for it,” he says.