Rs120 million grant for Arts Council

Karachi

The Arts Council, Karachi, has been given a grant of Rs120 million for renovation and modernisation out of the federal funds meant for the Governor’s development package.

This was disclosed by Ahmed Shah, President, Arts Council, while talking to The News on Thursday.

Shah said that the amount had already been deposited in the account of the Arts Council on June 19.
He told The News that the amount would be spent on the construction of a five-storeyed building to house the very many projects that the Arts Council already had and the new ones it was coming up with.

Disclosing details, he said that all the academies, like the theatre training and music training academies, were to be shifted to the basement. Besides, he said that since parking by the roadside was a major problem, they would also be shifting it to the basement

A new theatre was to be built on the ground floor. Just one theatre did not suffice given the heavy demand, he said, adding that the present theatre was booked right into the end of the year by various organisations.

Besides, the open air theatre, also known as the Z A Bokhari auditorium, is to be modernised and equipped with the most modern information technology and other present modern-day theatrical prerequisites like a modern ultra-modern screen. While at present it is an open-air auditorium, it is going to be covered in light of the noise and air pollution in the vicinity.

Besides, there’s going to be another two art galleries on the first floor, a reference library, and audio-visual library, and an audio-studio on the second floor.

The third floor is to have a TV studio which will be used by the Arts Council for its TV programmes, or will be rented out to TV channels.

Besides this grant of Rs120 million, the annual budgetary grant in the Sindh budget which thus far had been Rs5 million, has been raised to Rs17 million.

While the grant from the governor’s development would be used exclusively on refurbishing the infrastructure, the budgetary grant of the Sindh government would be used on the promotion of art and culture, Shah said.