bangalore the kannada sahitya parishat ksp is one of karnatakas oldest cultural institutions its upcoming centenary next may would normally be cause for celebration but its locked in a bitter battle with the state government over manpower its been functioning with 18 persons doing the work of 48 ksp president pundalika halambi met the chief minister last month and told him either appoint staff or lets close down the institution the ksp was formed on may 3 1915 to promote kannada language and literature through book publishing literary seminars and research projects it has been without fullfledged staff for the past 10 years we have problems with staffing especially for posts for government employees and 35 persons retired in the past 10 years the government hasnt filled these vacancies we raised this issue with former chief ministers including hd deve gowda bs yeddyurappa sadananda gowda jagadish shettar and now siddaramaiah but nobody seems to take any initiative running the parishat has become difficult says halambi the institution took some stopgap measures weve appointed 810 persons on a consolidated pay basis and raised funds from various sources to pay them salaries the situation is not sustainable says halambi another problem is that not many are aware about its problems i had no idea about it says ur ananthamurthy adding the parishat should share its problems with us he says halambi has grand plans for the centenary celebrations ive asked for rs 12 crore for the event which includes construction of shathamanothsava bhavana and publishing 100 best books of the past 100 years i hope the government reacts positively to this dictionary section hit the government had appointed six persons for the dictionary project but they retired and the section is closed for lack of staff says ksp chief halambi despite this its bringing out a dravida bhasha jnatha padakosha a dictionary of around 500 pages which has meanings for select dravida words in kannada telugu tamil and tulu i was the chief editor of the project which was closed in 1996 no dictionary project should be closed because its a continuous process when jagadish shettar was the cm he said hed help open the section i referred the letter to the ksp president the government should start a new project says noted kannada lexicographer g venkatasubbiahtimes view the warning signs have been there for some time but several governments over the past few years have ignored the staffing problem at the karnataka sahitya parishat if they thought the problem would miraculously go away they couldnt have been more wrong its reached such a pass that the ksp president is even prepared to close down the organization if he doesnt get the required staff perhaps its only threats like these which will stir the government into belated action and fix the problem it would be a shame to shut down this institution especially as it prepares to celebrate its centenary