Libraries fail to receive funds

Hyderabad: The Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation has been collecting crores of rupees as library cess as part of the property tax collected annually. The same, however, has not been remitted to the Hyderabad Zilla Grand-halaya Samstha on a regular basis, which is the main reason for libraries not just becoming godowns for books but also vanishing in the Twin Cities.

While the corporation starves city libraries of funds, the libraries make do with leaky roofs, moldy furniture, old books and hardly any visitors.

Including the City Central Library at Ashok Nagar that is visited by quite a few civil services aspirants, the Hyderabad Samstha maintains and runs 85 libraries in the Twin Cities. However, majority of them are not housed in proper buildings.

Earlier, the erstwhile Municipal Corporation of Hyderabad (MCH) would offer its buildings to be used as libraries whenever money was due to the Samstha.

However, the GHMC at present does not maintain the buildings nor remit funds regularly.

The library at Chikkadpally is facing a lot of civic issues. Amenities like drinking water and toilets are lacking and there hasn’t been any renovation for years.

This library is visited by over 500 students every day, especially job aspirants. Meanwhile the number of visitors to the Erramanzil library has declined drastically. In most of libraries, no books have not been purchased in over five years.

To keep the reading habit of citizens alive, the Samstha in 2009 had started the concept of “book deposit centres” wherein the colony associations provide space and the library provides '500 to buy periodicals and '1,000 for maintenance. So far 10 such centres have been opened, while the target was for 100.

The Zilla Grandhalaya Samstha was established as per the APPL Act 1960 under which, the local body should collect library cess and pay the same to the Zilla Grandhalaya Samstha. Since the formation of GHMC in 2007, the library cess is being paid to the Zilla Grandhalaya Samstha.