KOCHI: The Kerala Cartoon Academy has come out against the granting of Rs 5 crore to the Kochi Bienniale Foundation and also the move for giving more grants in the name of Muziris Bienniale when the academy is being neglected by the Cultural ministry. It also questionned the rationale behind granting such a huge amount for a private trust for conducting the bienniale. Academy secretary B Sajeev said the government was not providing any financial aid to the organisations that are actively engaged in the popularisation of art. “The government has sanctioned Rs 5 crore to a private trust formed recently. In the normal course, a trust will only get grant after three years of audit,’’ he said.Pointing out that the academy had been receiving `10,000 as grant, he said that the academy was finding it hard to meet the expenses. ‘’We have now stopped accepting the grant as a protest,’’ he said. Sajeev also said that the amount that had been spent for the renovation of the Durbar Hall had been exaggerated. The government should have taken the renovation work on their own instead of handing it over to a private trust, he added. Former academy secretary Sudheernath said the government had granted such a large amount to a private firm when most of the proposals put forward by the academy were pending before it. ‘’We had asked the government to start a chair in the name of cartoonist Shankar in Kerala University. But it said that it was not possible as it involved a huge amount.,’’ he said.The academy had earlier approached the government for a grant of Rs 1 lakh, which was not given, he said. ‘’The government had given the money to a private trust that has no auditing report. I doubt if the trust would have a proper auditing in the coming days,’’ he said. Cartoonist Sukumar said,In the coming days, we would be bound to use the ground in front of the Durbar Hall for conducting shows as the hall would be costly after the renovation,’’ he said.
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