Even as the centenary year celebrations of the Kannada Sahitya Parishat (KSP) is coming to an end, the ambitious plans envisaged by the parishat to mark the occasion are still limping.
The work on its ambitious plan to construct the Shatamanotsava Bhavana (centenary building), for which the foundation stone was laid 16 months ago, is yet to commence.
To mark the centenary year of the parishat, Chief Minister Siddaramaiah laid the foundation stone for the building project on June 17, 2014. While the government granted Rs. 3.5 crore for the project, Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) donated Rs. 1 crore. The government had also sanctioned Rs. 1.5 crore for organising the centenary year celebrations.
Though the funds are in place, there has been an inordinate delay in commencing the civil works of the building. Parishat president Pundalika Halambi attributes apathy of officials for the delay. The BBMP, which donated funds for the building, took its own sweet time to accord permission for the work, while Bangalore Development Authority had acted swiftly on the file pertaining to relaxation of norms, he said.
Now, tenders had been finalised and Karnataka Housing Corporation would take up the construction. An administrative order in this regard had been issued, said Mr. Halambi.
The parishat had planned to create a corpus of Rs. 2 crore by collecting donations from Kannadigas and various organisations to make the institution self-sustainable. But, Mr. Halambi could not succeed in doing so as all that came by way of collections was a meagre Rs. 20 lakh.
“Members of the parishat did not respond the way I had expected and so we could not collect funds as expected,” he said.
Publications
The parishat, however, succeeded in keeping up its promise of bringing out 100 representative works of Kannada, besides bringing out eight of the seventeen volumes planned on the history of modern Kannada literature. Kannada Sahitya Paristhat-100 , which documents every aspect of the institution since its inception, is ready for release.
Despite instructions from the Chief Minister, officials are not cooperating when it comes to clearing files pertaining to the project.
Pundalika Halambi,president of the
Kannada Sahitya Parishat
