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Bangladesh Shilpakala Academy, faced with budget shortages, has been holding fewer programmes of its own initiative in the recent months.

Consequently, its role has a good deal reduced to mostly managing the events undertaken by the cultural affairs ministry, academy officials said.

A Shilpakala Academy official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told ¶¶Òõ¾«Æ· recently that there was hardly any money for organising events, even organising regular activities like workshops and training became difficult.

Some other officials at the academy, also preferring anonymity, said that the ministry had yet to respond to the proposed detailed activity plan for September to December, mostly comprising cultural events and workshops that the academy had sent for the ministry’s assessment and approval.

‘The ministry received detailed plans of Shilpakala Academy, containing events of its six departments. But till November first week almost no proposed events were held,’ one of the officials said.

The usual practice in this regard is that Shilpakala Academy sends its yearly activity plan as a proposal to the cultural ministry for assessment, approval and release of budget based on the approved plan.

Officials said that for the interim period before the formation of an elected government through the general elections scheduled for February, the academy moved with a short-term activity plan which it had sent to the ministry.

Officials said that the ministry only gave approval to some one-off activities from the detailed plan, allowing the academy to organise only two activities in November so far—a wood carving workshop and photography exhibition of Abu Rasel Rony.

Shilpakala Academy organised no activities on its own initiative in September and October in the absence of the approval from the ministry, officials said.

Instead, it managed the ministry’s events during this period.

From September to November, the events undertaken by the cultural ministry and managed by Shilpakala Academy included a documentary film screening, Lalon festival and fair, birth anniversary of Ustad Allauddin Khan, sixth death anniversary of Abrar Fahad, Sharadiya Sangskritik Utsab and musical performances by Austrian musician Jacob Stainer and legendary singer Sabina Yasmin.

Poet Rezauddin Ahmed Stalin, who took over as the new director general of the academy on September 21 for one year, admitted to the budget shortages and said that due to want of money they were only holding events on priority basis.

Saying that they did not even have the finance to hold district-level events, Stalin stated, ‘we also need to organise events at the district level. Currently we are exchanging letters with the ministry to address these issues.’

While being under the cultural ministry, Shilpakala Academy was managing the ministry’s events, they had their own plans, but ‘we are not in a financial position to arrange all the programmes,’ the director general said.

‘We have plans to honour the legendary artists of the country and organise an event for the youths titled ‘Tarunner Utsab’ (celebrating youth) where band star James will perform,’ he added.  

Rezauddin Stalin also said that Shilpakala Academy currently had no new ‘annual performance agreement’, APA in short, with the ministry for the current financial year and was holding activities under the previous agreement.

Officials said that every financial year the academy signed an APA with the ministry based on the approved yearly plan against which the ministry released the budget.

When contacted, cultural affairs secretary Md Mafidur Rahman said that it was ‘not true’ that stymied by budget shortages Shilpakala Academy could not undertake events of its own.

He also said that the APA system would be scrapped to be replaced with a new method of work.

Cultural affairs adviser Mostofa Sarwar Farooki could not be reached for comments over phone.

The immediate past Shilpakala Academy director general, Syed Jamil Ahmed, resigned on February 28, alleging administrative interference and bureaucratic obstacles posed by the cultural affairs ministry.  

Syed Jamil also alleged that he was unable to work independently and faced frequent delays in securing necessary allocations for the academy’s development.

Recently, the cultural affairs ministry has announced a 26-member new executive committee for Bangladesh Shilpakala Academy, abolishing the previous committee on November 2.