Scores of artists, including folk artists, dressed in traditional attire and took out a protest march in Dharwad on Thursday seeking additional grants for promotion of various art forms and culture.
The artists who marched to the Deputy Commissioner’s office in Dharwad under the aegis of “Uttara Karnataka Kalavidara Okkoota” aired their grievances and said that because of COVID-19 pandemic, their life had been adversely affected as cultural programmes were not being held, forcing their families to the streets.
But even after withdrawing various restrictions imposed during COVID-19 pandemic, the government had failed to initiate steps that would help families of artists. They urged the government to increase the fund allocation to programmes related to art and culture so that they would get some relief.
The conveners of the Okkoota demanded that the pension of the artists should be increased to ₹5,000 and the age limit for artists’ pension should be reduced from 60 to 40. This apart, cultural troupes performing at government programmes should be paid ₹50,000, they demanded.
On reaching the Deputy Commissioner’s office, they staged a demonstration and submitted a memorandum addressed to the chief Minister to the officials of district administration.
In the memorandum, they have mentioned that despite government order on holding cultural programmes and cultural processions during government programmes and birth anniversaries of eminent personalities, the artists were not being invited to perform.
There had been undue delay in selecting artists for staging street plays on government schemes. Senior artists were not able to get their pension as they were being forced to run from pillar to post. The move to collect data on artists through online mode was not working because of technical glitches, they alleged.
The other demands in the memorandum included increase in grant from ₹2.5 lakh to ₹10 lakh to cultural forums identified by the government and threefold increase in the grants for Department of Kannada and Culture.
