The annual general meeting of Bangiya Sahitya Parishad is going to be stormy in view of the sheer mismanagement of the authorities running the organization.
Bangiya Sahitya Parishad is one of the premier libraries in the state. Great people like Rabindranath Tagore, Jagadish Chandra Bose were associated with the library. The library has a museum. The original manuscript of Sister Nivedita’s immortal work My Master as I saw Him is lying at Bangiya Sahitya Parishad.
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The library members alleged that they are unable to get books and some of the oldest punthis. The members, mostly research scholars, visit the library to get the books but are unable to trace them. The authorities put forward one logic or the other to dodge the research scholars.
There are many old original scriptures knows as the punthis. These punthis are confined to the library and the readers can see it and copy the relevant portions. Even foreign research scholars have to run from pillar-to-post to get copies of old punthis.
It was learnt that in the last five years, the expenditure incurred on the publication was about Rs 70 lakh while the income from the sale proceeds was around Rs 33 lakh. It was learnt that a major part of Rs 70 lakh was taken from the interest received from the central grant of Rs 10 crore, which was arranged by the former president late Pranab Mukherjee.
The quality of the magazine published by Bangiya Sahitya Parishad is declining. The poor quality is evident from the recently published issue to celebrate the bicentenary of Michael Madhusudan Dutta.
The readers said there has been irregularity over the recruitment of employees. They said steps should be taken immediately to save the old prestigious organization.
