Bhopal (Madhya Pradesh): It is a double whammy for the artistes working in theatre repertories in Madhya Pradesh. After the Union Culture Ministry denied grants to a majority of the repertories, the State Culture Department, too, is delaying the release of funds to them.
It is now almost three months since the end of the financial year 2025-26 but the State Culture Department is yet to release its annual grants of last year. For want of funding, almost all the repertories are in debt of lakh of rupees and the artistes are in dire straits.
Nearly 135 of 214 repertories have been refused grants by Union Culture Ministry for the financial years 2024-25 and 2025-26. Of the 214 repertories from across the state that had applied for renewal of their annual grants, the applications of just 79 have been approved.
The renewal requests of 83 repertories have been rejected while 52 have been put on a cooling-off period for two years. This means that almost two-thirds of the repertories have lost their grants.
The Ministry notified the list of approved and rejected applications under its Guru-Shishya Parampara scheme in the last week of March. Noted theatre actor and director Sanjay Mehta said that it is clear that the government is indifferent towards the plight of the theatre artistes. He described the situation as unfortunate. We have already done the work, spent money and now they are withholding our money, he said.
Azam Khan, director of the Flying Fairies Theatre Group, said that his repertory did not receive grant from either the Central or the State Government since 2022-23. We are paying the artistes from our own pocket, he said.
The Centre has slashed grants saying that they don t have funds. The state government is merely giving assurances that the grants will be released shortly, a woman theatre artiste, who has been in the field for 40 years, said, adding that whatever may be their reasons, it is the artistes community that is suffering.
The decision to release grants to repertories is under process. Some points are being examined. Once it is complete, the grants will be released.
NP Namdeo, Director, Culture
