The once regal Kala Academy, which has hosted many a celebrity and has been the venue of numerous big-ticket events, including the international Film festival of India, has now been reduced to a joke, or rather, a comedy of (contractual) errors.
Just days after the media reported that Kala Academy was likely to be closed for two whole months for ‘rectification’ work, the state government was slammed for continuing to delay the upgrade of the iconic centre of the arts. But what probably evoked widespread public ire was chief minister Pramod Sawant recently saying that the current contractor will complete repairing the rectifications themselves at no additional cost, in keeping with the Kala Academy's task force suggestion, and complete the work by October this year, in time for Iffi. “Once that is done, the contract will be terminated and the contractor will be blacklisted,” Sawant is reported to have told the media. If this was not enough to enrage citizens, Sawant went a step further by blatantly declaring that new tenders will be floated for additional works that were not covered in the original contract.
Instead of taking the government's announcement at face value, several quarters have rightfully lashed out at the impunity of both, the authorities and the contractors roped in to repair Kala Academy, over the recent past, highlighting large-scale corruption, bureaucratic inefficiency, and close to no accountability.
“Why was a contractor with such poor work ethics selected in the first place? What about the officials and decision-makers who approved these tenders? Who will ensure taxpayers aren’t further burdened by such blatant mismanagement?” a local political party asked while demanding a probe into the entire tendering and execution of these works by the government.
An artiste group asked a more poignant question. "Why will a contractor carry out proper work if he knows he will be blacklisted?” This is an excellent point of view that exposes not only the chief minister's intention to fool the people but also his cheek to believe that the people will in fact be fooled.
However, Sawant has failed to understand that the people have had enough as they have had to endure witnessing the state's ambassador of the arts being pummelled time and time again by governmental corruption and contractors who seemed to have no clue about what they are doing, which has led to one contractor being roped in to correct the other's work, however shoddily.
In the past, the Charles Correa Foundation (CCF) itself had said it was concerned about the restoration of the renowned architect Charles Correa's masterpiece along the River Mandovi. It has claimed that structural repairs and architectural changes were being undertaken in a manner contradictory to Correa’s ideas, while urging the government to put its plans regarding restoration in the public domain and be transparent about it.
"We would like the building to not be changed way too drastically and the restoration to be done in the right spirit," the CCF had said. “One of the reasons for the deterioration of the Kala Academy building is the overloading of the structure with multiple coats of waterproofing. Repairs need to be done by keeping in mind the architectural spirit of Charles Correa."
The artiste group has gone ahead and presently demanded a forensic audit of the open-air auditorium that collapsed in 2023, which has only furthered concerns over the integrity of the renovation at Kala Academy. it isn't wrong making such a demand when amid restoration work in July 2023, the entire slab of the open-air auditorium came crashing down, resulting in the greatest damage to the structure. Then, a few months later, in December, a mirror in the green room suddenly crashed to the floor and shattered, while in January 2024, leaks in the roof of the once awe-inspiring Dinanath Mangueshkar Kala Mandir saw staff drying seats and carpeted floors with electric fans. The Sharad Ponkshe incident and a similar one thereafter are the most recent slip-ups in a structure that the government has spent crores of rupees to refurbish and which should have been operating at its very best.
So, no! The contractors can't be merely blacklisted. They need to pay up, and pay up dearly for reducing such a meticulously planned structure into a pile or brick and mortar that has been struggling to stand steady. If Sawant continues to be docile where this matter is concerned, it will certainly amount to him being complicity in the utter destruction of the Kala Academy.