Kala Academy’s saga appears to be unending, as on Saturday a portion of the false ceiling in the violin classroom at the recently renovated iconic cultural institution collapsed on Saturday, raising fresh concerns about the quality of restoration work.
Two years ago, the stage roof of the open-air auditorium of the Kala Academy collapsed. There were also incidents of leakage in the main auditorium.
The Kala Academy building was renovated at a cost of about Rs 60 crore without floating a tender and allegedly without following the laid down procedures.
The Kala Rakhonn Mandd and the Task Force Committee had repeatedly raised red flags about the shoddy work, but their concerns were reportedly ignored.
In May this year the PWD had closed Kala Academy for two months to carry out the rectification work such as lights, sound and acoustics.
Goa Chief Minister Pramod Sawant had announced that Techton Buildcon Pvt Ltd, the contractor responsible for the renovation of the Kala Academy, would be blacklisted and had given the contractor until October 2025 to fix the defects without extra cost to the government.
Bitter truth: Goa’s cultural crown jewel crumbling
The planned four-year Annual Maintenance Contract with TechtonBuildcon has also been cancelled.
Kala RakhonnMandd member Francis Coelho said, “Today, as another false ceiling crashes down in Kala Academy’s Western Music classroom, we are forced to confront a brutal truth: this government has turned Goa’s cultural crown jewel into a death trap. This is the second collapse within three months, yet Chief Minister Pramod Sawant remains cocooned in denial, treating artistes and citizens with contempt. The Rs 70 crore “renovation” is a grotesque fraud. We warned of structural calamities for months, but a task force appointed as an eyewash was ignored. The CM dodged our pinpoint reports for weeks, while the PWD hid engineering audits.”
Coelho demanded a forensic audit by IIT Madras and no more PWD cover-ups. The contractors and complicit officials should be criminally prosecuted.
Kala RakhonnMandd secretary Cecille Rodrigues said, “Today is a sad day to see that the false ceiling of the violin class collapsed and that in spite of crores of rupees spent on Kala Academy is going down the drain. Corruption is at its peak. The BJP government has ruined the Kala Academy’s name. It was an iconic centre for students to come and learn and for artistes a place to perform. I demand that it should be looked into to hold those responsible accountable. The contractors should be blacklisted and put behind bars for putting children’s lives at risk. The people of Goa deserve better than a crumbling Kala Academy, which is a symbol of our cultural heritage.”
Constituted to review the infrastructure and suggest improvements to Kala Academy, the task force had uncovered serious deficiencies in all three critical technical domains of sound, lighting, and acoustics (inclusive of ambient noise control).
Earlier, the task force had submitted its report to Chief Minister Pramod Sawant, who had assured them that rectification work will start after meeting the PWD officials.