Artistes play a role to maintain communal peace & harmony: CM

Artistes are ambassadors for the growth of civilization and help to cement communal peace and harmony, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee said on Monday.

She was addressing a gathering to show respect to Uttam Kumar, Bengal's greatest matinee idol at Nazrul Mancha on Monday afternoon. He died on July 24, 1980, over three and a half decades ago.

"Without artistes, life would have been as barren and dry as a desert. You make our lives happy and meaningful. Artistes take a civilization forward and play a major role in cementing communal peace and harmony," Banerjee said.

She said the state government will bring another one lakh folk artistes under the monthly stipend scheme taking the total number to 1.82 lakh before the Pujas. The artistes get not only a stipend, the state government also organises regular programmes for them to make them economically stronger.

It may be recalled that after the change of guard in 2011, the Information and Cultural Affairs department prepared a list of folk artistes and started giving a monthly stipend to them. They are also given instruments from time to time. This has helped many of them who had joined some other vocation to pursue the traditional art and music forms.

She said that the state government will make a tele film city and a sum of Rs 135 crore has been allotted for the purpose. Tender to find a suitable firm to assign the job has been floated. There will be an archive and a digital library containing films made by the great directors like Satyajit Roy, Mrinal Sen, Tapan Sinha along with works of present day directors. There will be a section on the films acted by Uttam Kumar.

It may be recalled that copies of many of the black and white films acted by the legendary actor in the 1950s and 1960s have been destroyed. It may be recalled that the indifference of the Left Front to preserve Uttam Kumar's films was mainly due to the former Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattcharjee's indifference. In absence of Jyoti Basu, who was then touring abroad when the actor died on July 24, 1980, the state government did not place a floral wreath on the mortal remains of Uttam Kumar following Bhattacharjee's instructions.

Banerjee said work to set up the film city is on. The state government will construct a nine-storeyed building above the cinema centenary hall. There will be an archive, a recording room and a library.

Vivek Kumar, principal secretary, Information and Cultural Affairs department sang a famous song from Rajkumari: "e ki holo ki je holo kano holo."

Uttam Kumar had acted in the film along with Tanuja and the playback songs were sung by Kishore Kumar. Indranil Sen, Minister of State for Information and Cultural Affairs, Rupankar, Sriradha Bandyopadhyay and Gautam Ghosh sang songs from popular films in which Uttam Kumar had acted.