Sangeet Kala Akademi in Bokaro. (Pankaj Singh)

Bokaro, Aug. 16: Bokaro Steel Limited will earn kudos from the city’s art and culture aficionados now that its project to fund the renovation of Sangeet Kala Akademi is well underway.

Having decided to set aside a substantial portion of corporate social responsibility funds for the promotion of art and culture in the steel city, the PSU management has plans to develop the academy into a centre of excellence and spruce up its campus in sector IV.

“Besides renovating the academy building, an open air concrete stage would also be repaired with improved seating arrangemetns for the audience,” said Sanjay Tewary, the chief of communications.

According to company sources, it ultimately plans to get the academy registered with the state so that it does not miss out on grant from the state arts and culture department.

Former executive director of Bokaro Steel Plant S.N. Singh, who retired recently, said the academy was the city’s only reputed centre for learning music, art and culture and deserved to be nurtured. “Bokaro Steel has extended its hand for making it self-sufficient and will ensure that better teachers come forward to mould young talent,” he said.

Till recently, the academy used to generate its own funds by collecting tuition fees from students who came to take classes in various Indian classical dance forms such as Kathak, Odissi and Bharat Natyam, as well as classical music, guitar, tabla and other musical instruments.

Of late, however, it was finding it difficult to pay salaries of its teachers as the funds collected were not enough. S.N. Das, a senior functionary at the academy, admitted that due to paucity of funds, several renowned teachers had left — some even left town — in search of better offers.

But now that Bokaro Steel has stepped in, the managing committee of the academy had decided to add more courses, including Spanish guitar, to attract more students.

Several visiting cultural personalities, including the likes of theatre person Usha Ganguly, have time and again asked the Bokaro Steel management to work out a systematic plan to nurture the arts in the town.

Bokaro Steel sources admitted the current move to revamp the academy building was the first step for the PSU in that direction.