Telangana government to revive defunct academies

Hyderabad: The TS government has initiated steps to revive the defunct Telugu Sahitya Academy, Telugu Sangeeta Nataka Academy and Telugu Lalitha Kala Academy for promotion of Telugu literature, music, drama and fine arts. These academies were abolished by the then TD government in 1980s, when late N.T. Rama Rao was the Chief Minister. Since then, no steps were initiated by subsequent governments to restore them.

The Congress government took the initiative in 2013 when former Chief Minister N. Kiran Kumar Reddy issued directions to the department of culture to revive them. Mr Reddy had promised to revive these academies during the Fourth World Telugu Conference in Tirupati in 2012. Accordingly, a GO was issued in April 2013 asking the department of culture to revive the academies.

However, political uncertainty prevailed in the state at that time due to the Telangana statehood agitation and the issue was put on the backburner. During the Budget preparatory exercise with the department of culture recently, officials brought to the notice of Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao how the state was losing Central grants due to lack of academies. They told Mr Rao that the Centre granted funds under various schemes for promotion of literature, music, drama, fine arts etc through academies but TS was not in a position to claim the funds.