Despite the passage of five years, construction at The Faiz Ahmed Faiz Auditorium at Pakistan Academy of Letters is still not complete. Lack of economic resources, shuffling of PAL from one ministry to another, and running of affairs without higher officials caused the delay in the completion of the project.
The project was started in 2009 during the tenure of former PAL Chairman Iftikhar Arif and had to be completed in 2011.
According to an official at PAL, “When the project was started in 2008, about Rs 40 million were declared for the project, but only 50 percent of the amount was given to PAL. The entire amount has been spent, but more money was needed for its completion”.
At the International Conference of Writers and Intellectuals -2012, the prime minister ordered to grant Rs 30 million for the completion of the project but, PAL had still not received that amount.
According to a spokesman of PAL, “We have done our job…summary for the payment has been sent to the Cabinet Division through the Ministry of National Heritage and Integration.”
“We are in great need of the auditorium as we have no place for conducting events like: book fairs, seminars, mushairas, and literary-sittings,” he added.
The auditorium was named after the renowned Urdu poet Faiz Ahmed Faiz on the occasion of his 100th birth anniversary on February 2011.
Writers and intellectuals have been long demanding the completion of this auditorium. Along with a 400 seat auditorium, two conference rooms for small scale meetings, an art gallery and a museum for the display of pictures and belongings of mentors of Urdu literature were also the part of the project.
Writers and intellectuals were demanding completion of the project as soon as possible to reduce the difficulties regarding arranging of events.
Pakistan Academy of Letters is the only national level department which is responsible for the well fare of writers, poets and intellectuals, and to develop the ideology and identity of Pakistan.