15 language academies, Sahitya Kala Parishad to get expert touch as hiring rules get revamped

NEW DELHI: The Delhi government has started the process to give a facelift to language academies and Sahitya Kala Parishad (SKP) to improve their functioning and efficiency. Senior officials of the arts, culture, and language (ACL) department said that a fresh memorandum of association (MoA) is being worked upon for each academy and the Parishad to redefine recruitment rules for hiring experts and professionals.

The process will be completed by the end of this year, which will require final go-ahead from the government. “Mainly, recruitment rules are being finalized so that suitable people can be employed. In addition to bringing in innovation and creativity, under the redefined norms, new contractual positions to engage expert professionals will be created. The idea is to improve internal functioning and service or program delivery capacity of the bodies,” said an official.

The department, carved out of the education department, was set up in 1999 to propagate and promote different languages. It holds several arts, literature, and cultural activities, which are carried out through the Parishad and language 15 academies such as Punjabi, Hindi, Urdu, Sanskrit, and Sindhi, and Maithili-Bhojpuri. 

These bodies are autonomous institutions and their affairs managed by a government body headed by the minister in charge. The officials added that staff strength of academies would also be rationalized as part of their revamp. “The plan to source administrative staff from the government is also being given final shape. Each language academy will have a dedicated social media team and public relations officer,” said the official. The other motives of the entire exercise are to sync academies’ functioning with newfangled technology and also to fix accountability, said the officials.  

“One of the academies was being run without a full-time head for five years. The officer was holding the charge as an additional responsibility. At one point in time, the academy in question was known for its publications. Some of the officials at the academies have retired and those positions were not filled,” said an official, privy to the development, on the condition of anonymity.  “The term of an academy is set to end soon. Surprisingly, in the last two years, only one meeting of the government body of the academy was held. Even one suggestion made by the members couldn’t be executed,” said the official.