Maintenance Grant to Institutions and Organizations Engaged in Cultural Activities, Puducherry

What is the Maintenance Grant for cultural organisations?

Maintenance Grant to Institutions and Organizations Engaged in Cultural Activities is a grant-in-aid scheme of the Department of Art and Culture, Government of Puducherry. It sits within the department's programme for the establishment and promotion of cultural activities and grant-in-aid to voluntary cultural institutions, and its aim is simply to help a working cultural organisation stay open.

According to the department's programmes and schemes statement, the benefit is a maintenance grant of Rs 3,000 and Rs 5,000 for cultural activities.

The amounts are small, and it is worth being clear about what they are for. This is not project funding for a festival or a production. It is a contribution towards the standing costs of an organisation. The room, the register, the running of a society that keeps a classical or folk form alive in Puducherry between performances. The department funds the performances themselves through separate grants, and a well-run institution usually draws on more than one of them in a year.

The Department of Art and Culture works out of 1, Romain Rolland Street, Puducherry 605001, and also operates through offices in Karaikal, Mahe and Yanam.

Who is eligible for the maintenance grant?

Your organisation can apply if:

• The cultural organisation has been engaged in cultural activities for a minimum period of two years prior to the date of application for the grant-in-aid.
• Its accounts have been duly audited and approved by a competent person or body under the provisions of the rules accompanying the Memorandum of Association of the institution.
• The organisation is not run for profit to any individual or a body of individuals.
• The organisation has submitted utilisation certificates for all grants received on previous occasions.

You are not eligible, and cannot apply, if:

• The organisation is less than two years old, or cannot evidence two years of cultural work before the date of application.
• The organisation is run for profit to any individual or body of individuals. A commercial event management firm, a fee-charging private academy run for gain, or an individual artiste's own venture does not qualify.
• The institution has defaulted in submitting utilisation certificates for grants made on previous occasions. The department states plainly that such institutions are not eligible for grants.
• The accounts are unaudited, or have not been approved as the Memorandum of Association requires.
• You are an individual artiste seeking personal support. Puducherry supports individual artistes through a separate scheme that pays Rs 1,000 a month to indigent artistes aged above 50 with an annual income not exceeding Rs 24,000, and Rs 1,500 a month to indigent Tamil scholars aged above 58. Those are personal benefits; this one is institutional.

What the grant gives

The grant is released to the institution's account, and is accounted for afterwards through a utilisation certificate. That certificate is not a formality. It is the condition on which any future grant to the same institution depends.

What documents are required?

How to apply for the Maintenance Grant

1. Get the application form. Visit the Department of Art and Culture during office hours and ask the staff entrusted with issuing and collecting applications for the hard copy of the prescribed form, or download it from the department's application page at art.py.gov.in/application, the listing there includes the "Application for the Scheme of Maintenance Grant to Institutions for Organisations engaged in Cultural Activities", along with a checklist, the rules and a classification annexure.
2. Get the accounts audited and approved by a competent person or body under the rules accompanying your Memorandum of Association, before you file. An application with unaudited accounts will not proceed.
3. Fill in all the mandatory fields in the form, paste the passport-size photograph where the form requires it and sign across it, and attach self-attested copies of the registration certificate, Memorandum of Association, audited accounts, records of two years of cultural work, the non-profit declaration and the institution's bank details.
4. Submit the duly filled and signed application form along with the documents to the Superintendent, Department of Art and Culture, 1, Romain Rolland Street, Puducherry 605001.
5. Request a receipt or acknowledgement from the Superintendent, and check that it carries the date and time of submission and a unique identification number if one is assigned.
6. File the utilisation certificate after the grant is spent. This is what keeps your institution eligible for the next round.

How do I follow up on the application?

1. Contact the Superintendent, Scheme Section, Department of Art and Culture, at 1 Romain Rolland Street, Puducherry 605001, on +91-413-2336203 or +91-413-2349716.
2. For grievances, complaints and suggestions, the department directs the public to the Assistant Library and Information Officer on all working days, and to the Director on Tuesdays and Thursdays between 10 a.m. and 12 noon.
3. In the outlying regions, approach the officials in charge of the Department of Art and Culture, Karaikal on +91-4368-221472, Mahe on +91-490-2332222 and Yanam on +91-884-2321243 to or, if necessary, the Regional Executive Officer.

Common reasons applications are rejected

• Under two years of cultural activity before the date of application.
• Utilisation certificates pending for grants already received — an explicit disqualification.
• Accounts not audited or not approved as the Memorandum of Association requires.
• Organisation run for profit, or effectively controlled for the benefit of one person.
• No record of activity, a registered society with a certificate but no programmes to show for the two years.

Other grants from the Department of Art and Culture

An institution applying for the maintenance grant should look at the department's other grants in the same year, since they fund different things:

• Financial assistance for dance and drama troupes and associations, a grant not exceeding Rs 2,000 in each case, for presenting new classical or folk dance programmes or staging new dramas by a cultural body registered in the territory with a standing of at least two years, where the theme, story and dialogue are original work by an artiste who is a native of the territory by birth or domicile.
• Financial assistance for holding a conference, seminar, symposium, exhibition, festival or competition: Rs 10,000 annually, for an institution with a standing of at least two years. Foreign delegates may not be invited without prior government approval.
• Financial assistance for publication of manuscripts and research journals; Rs 10,000, for work on language, literature, philosophy, religion, history, music, dance, drama or the fine arts, in Tamil, Malayalam, Telugu, English or French. Works of fiction are not considered.
• Promotion of open air cultural activities, Rs 3,500, for artistes of Therukoothu, Bommalattam, Karagattam, Silambattam and similar traditional forms.

A note on what is published

The Department of Art and Culture publishes the grant amounts and the four eligibility conditions for this scheme in its programmes and schemes statement, and those are the figures and conditions used above. The department does not publish a fixed annual last date for the maintenance grant, a sanction calendar, or a worked-out scale linking the grant to the size of the institution. Applicants should confirm the current year's position with the Scheme Section before preparing an application, since at Rs 3,000 and Rs 5,000 the grant is best treated as one part of an institution's funding rather than its mainstay.