New Delhi, March 1 (IANS) Union Minister of Culture Kumari Selja Tuesday said her ministry was working on a proposal to set up five new regional centres of the prestigious National School of Drama (NSD) at Bengaluru and Kolkata and in Maharashtra/Goa, Jammu and Kashmir and the northeast.
The minister said the proposal to create the regional centres was based on the recommendations of the broad based committee of the NSD.
In a written reply to a question in the Lok Sabha, Selja said the Bengaluru centre had already been made operational on an ad hoc basis.
The remaining centres can come up only after suitable accommodation is made available by the state governments concerned, she said.
She said a proposal by a group of classical artistes under the umbrella of the All India Musicians’ Group (AIMG) to start a separate television channel for culture ‘was under consideration in consultation with the ministry of information and broadcasting’.
She said the ministry of culture operates two plan schemes for financial assistance to museums that were in need for support.
She said the ‘financial assistance for setting up, promotion and strengthening of regional and local museums’ envisages financial assistance of upto Rs.5 crore and Rs.2.50 crore for development of infrastructure of existing museums.
She said under the government scheme, assistance is also provided to government and non-government organisations which propose to establish new museums at the regional and local levels.
The culture minister said that under the ‘Modernisation of museums in metro cities’ scheme, four museums – National Museum in New Delhi, Indian Museum in Kolkata, Egmore Museum in Chennai and Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sangrahalaya in Mumbai – have been identified for modernisation.
An amount of Rs.1.83 crore had been spent under the scheme in 2010-2011 (as on Feb 15), the minister said.
Kumari Selja also said that the Archaeological Survey of India has not provided any funds to the Uttar Pradesh government to protect monuments. But an amount of Rs.16.45 crore has been earmarked for the conservation of centrally protected monuments in the state during the current financial year 2010-11.
In reply to a question about the allocation of funds to autonomous organisations under the ministry of culture, Selja said that with effect from 2010-2011, the pattern of the release of funds to autonomous organisations has been amended and funds are released in two instalments of 75 and 25 percent each.
