Pics: Spoorthi Ullal
Daijiworld Media Network - Mangaluru (JD)
Mangaluru, Jun 29: A delegation led by president of Karnataka Konkani Sahitya academy, Roy Castelino submitted a memo along with a copy of proposal for the Konkani Bhavan to the mayor of Mangaluru City Corporation (MCC) urging for sanctioning of land for the proposed Konkani Bhavan on June 29.
The mayor in response to the appeal said that he is ready to help the Konkani community and will dedicate his efforts to sanctioning land for the same.
"It had been tabled in the council meeting of MCC. Later it had been sent to the standing committee of town planning. Earlier sanctioning of the land was denied, but after discussing with the concerned authorities I will try my best to help the Konkani community in this regard," he said.
Speaking prior to the mayor's arrival Roy Castelino said, "Even though we have been part of Karnataka state government we have been denied land for the Konkani Bhavan. It has come to our notice that someone is working behind the scenes as the proposal has been rejected by the council.
"We have an office at the MCC premises but it does not have place to carry out our cultural activities. The academy was founded in 1994 and we are the only linguistic community which lacks our own building to carry out our activities," lamented Castelino.
"We are requesting 41 cents of land near KSRTC which has been lying idle since decades. This is the only land in the city which meets our requirements. A small meeting hall, a mini museum, a 500 seater hall for cultural activities a library along with parking facility has been included in the proposal which is estimated to be of Rs 8 crore," he explained.
"We have our community leaders namely MLA, MLC, chairman of the standing committee for town planning, former mayor and council members. It is painful that none of them are working in this regard. We had submitted a copy of the proposal to the deputy commissioner, previous mayor and MCC commissioner a year ago, but this proposal is still in the same stage. At this moment we remember the support from the chief minister Siddharamaiah who had fulfilled our demands by giving a chair for Konkani literature at the university. In his previous visit to the Kalangan foundation stone laying ceremony of the Konkani museum he had promised to release grants to the Konkani Bhavan once MCC sanctions the land," he said.
Former academy president Basti Vaman Shenoy, registrar of the academy Devdas Pai, Konkani community leaders Elias Fernandes, Lawrence D'Souza, Vidya Kamath, Stany Alavares, Naveen D'Souza, Victor Mathias and others were present.
Appeal through placards
The members of the delegation displayed placards to the mayor depicting their support for the Konkani Bhavan as a symbol of silent appeal.