Folk artists told to register with welfare board

Coimbatore: Folk artists who practise performing art forms have been showing lukewarm interest to register with the Folk Artists Welfare Board under the state department of art and culture, say officials and representatives of forums that promote folk arts.
The Tamil Nadu Folk Artists Welfare Board had given Rs 2,000 special assistance during the Covid-19 lockdown to 24,588 folk artists across the state, whose livelihoods had been affected by the lockdown, said B Hemanathan, assistant director of the Regional Art and Culture Centre in Salem. The board has 35,644 registered members. “Of them, 24,588 are eligible members, who are still in the performance sphere. We gave them the assistance fund,” he told TOI.
In Coimbatore, there are only 718 registered members in the board, and among them 505 eligible people have been given the Covid-19 assistance fund, he said.
Folk artists said March-June was their ‘season’, when they get to perform in temples and festivals. As this year the season has almost gone past in lockdown, which prevented gatherings and festivals, they said their income for almost the whole year has been lost.
Over the past weeks, several artist groups said they had not received the special assistance, as they had not registered with the welfare board. “However, they have not been forthcoming to register. After we started giving the assistance funds, only 140 people turned up to register,” Hemanathan said.
Representatives of folk art forums seconded this and said artists need to be responsible and get themselves registered. M Harikrishnan, who runs Kalari Heritage and Charitable Trust in Salem, which promotes, documents and teaches folk arts, said in several instances, artists were careless about such government initiatives. “The department has been reaching out to artists to enrol them in the welfare board. Artists should make use of it,” he said.