Meant to be Kannada’s sentinel, Sahitya Parishat has lost financial autonomy

Kannada Sahitya Parishat, an autonomous body started more than a century ago (1915), has lost its financial independence, say past and present district presidents.

KSP office bearers claim that politicians and bureaucrats are curtailing its execution rights by controlling money flow. As per the bylaws of KSP, a joint bank account has to be opened to credit funds meant for organising Akhila Bharatha Kannada Sahitya Sammelana.

However, since the last three meets, this is not being followed. The funds allocated by the government are credited into the deputy commissioner’s account, while donations and stall fees collected by KSP are credited to the joint account of KSP and DC.

For the Dharwad (2019 - 84th edition) and Kalaburagi (2020 - 85th edition) Sammelanas, the district administrations never kept them in the loop over the expenditures for the literary meet, the respective KSP district presidents said.

So far, they have not been provided them with the audit report copies.

Lingaraj Angadi, the KSP Dharwad unit president, said: “The deputy commissioner spent all the money allocated for the event directly from the treasury account,” he said.

The district unit was supposed to receive Rs 25 lakh from the district administration and so far it has not been settled, he added.

For the 2019 event, the government released Rs 10 crore and an additional Rs 3 crore was collected from donors, stall fees, registration fees and others.

The district administration claims that it has submitted the third-party audit report to the government and returned the excess amount to the government. Similarly in Kalaburagi, the government released Rs 10 crore and an additional Rs five crore was collected from other means.

Veerabhadrappa Simpi, the former district president under whose tenure the meet was held, says he is not aware of how much money was released by the government and collected from the public. “The district administration controlled the entire amount,” he said, adding that it has not released the audit report so far.

KSP president Mahesh Joshi said he too has written several letters to the district administrations, seeking a white paper of accounts of these meets.

“As per the bylaws, the DCs have to create a joint account and operate it. Funds need to be released only after signatures from both the heads,” he said and added he would talk to the government to resolve this issue.

“KSP cannot function as sub-servant to the government. It is an autonomous body and its sanctity should be maintained,” he said.

Deepa Cholan, the then DC of Dharwad under whose tenure the 2019 meeting was held, says she acted as per government orders.

“The DC cannot create a joint account under khajane 2 treasury software. So the funds released by the government were utilised directly. Not a single paisa can be misused as vouchers for every expenditure have to be submitted,” she said.