Centre of Excellence for Studies in Classical Kannada will be taken out of CIIL, Mysuru, given autonomy, and shifted to Bengaluru, says Union Minister

The Centre of Excellence for Studies in Classical Kannada in Mysuru.
| Photo Credit: M.A. SRIRAM

The Union government plans to separate the Centre of Excellence for Studies in Classical Kannada (CESCK) from Central Institute of Indian Languages (CIIL), Mysuru, give it autonomy, and shift it to Bengaluru.

Sixteen years after Kannada was granted the Classical Language status in 2008, CESCK still does not have its own building and is dependent on CIIL for all its expenses, creating hurdles for its development. In addition, the lack of funds from the Union government has hampered its activities.

In this backdrop, a delegation led by Kannada Development Authority (KDA) chairman Purushothama Bilimale met Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan recently and urged him to not only separate the centre from CIIL, but also give it autonomy and hand it over to the State government, on the lines of a similar centre in Tamil Nadu.  

While the Minister reportedly agreed to take the centre out of CIIL, make it autonomous, he turned down the request to hand it over to the State. Over and above, Mr. Pradhan promised the delegation that the Centre would soon be shifted to Bengaluru. 

“The Minister turned down our request to hand over the centre to the State government. He said the Tamil centre was handed over to the State by the erstwhile UPA government for political reasons, but no other centre will be transferred to States as the classical language initiative is a Central project. However, he said not only Kannada, but all classical language centres will be brought out of the ambit of CIIL and developed as autonomous institutions under the Central government. He said the CESCK will be shifted to Bengaluru as only then will the research and development work at the centre benefit from the science and technology ecosystem in the city,” Prof. Bilimale said. 

Mr. Pradhan further told the delegation to organise a meeting of scholars, thinkers, writers, and technologists in Bengaluru, for crowdsourcing suggestions for the development of CESCK. The Minister will personally visit Bengaluru and chair this meeting, Prof. Bilimale said, adding the meeting will be organised as soon as the date of his visit is fixed.

“The Minister also promised that if KDA submits proposals for research projects related to classical Kannada, necessary funds would be released immediately. So KDA will work on these lines and submit our proposals soon,” he said.