LARKANA Work on the Arts Complex projects has again hit snags, an office-bearer of the Arts Council has blamed the secretary for culture for obstructing the project approved four years ago.
Sources in the Arts Council blamed red-tapism for the delay and criticised the Sindh Culture and Tourism Department's reported decision to open a barbeque point adjacent to the Open Air Theatre. They said that furniture for the outlet had been purchased and the kitchen had been constructed.
The sources also said that the point would affect the surroundings of the theatre and the Arts Complex.
They said the secretary of culture was pressing for establishing the Arts Council somewhere else, although adequate space was available for it in the Open Air Theatre.
Manzoor Kohyar, secretary of the Arts Council, said it was regrettable that ministers and other important people who had attended Arts Council programmes and announced donations had not yet sent a penny.
The Rs79.743 million project was approved by the Provincial Development Working Party (PDWP) in a meeting in 2005, said the sources citing a letter written by District Coordination Officer Mohammed Jaffer Abbasi to the secretary on May 20, 2009.
Initially, Rs5 million was released for the project but the Planning and Development Department dropped the project in 2008-09.
Sindh Culture Minister Sassui Palijo inaugurated the project a couple of months ago after MNA Faryal Talpur took interest in it.
The DCO indicated that land for Arts Complex was available in the premises of the Open Air Theatre.
Hadi Bugti, treasurer of the Arts Council, said that the former secretary of culture, Abdul Qadir Mangi, had said in a letter to the then DCO, Mohammed Naseer Jamali, on March 14, 2007, that funds allocated for the project would lapse if a two-acre plot was not selected for it.
The executive engineer of the Provincial Buildings Department in a letter to the chief engineer on Nov 3, 2007, had also said that if a plot was not arranged Rs5 million would lapse.
The departments concerned kept surrendering the allocated amount on one pretext or the other and took little interest in selecting a plot during the four years.
The government of Sindh allocated Rs10 million for the project in the current financial year after on a request of DCO Mohammed Jaffer Abbasi, according to executive engineer Shabbir Panhyar.
He confirmed that the project had been approved and included in the current financial year 2009-10. The work on the project could be taken up after a plot of land had been identified.
The DCO in a letter to the secretary of culture on May 14, 2008, said that the council required a Rs5 million annual grant.
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