From this year, Sri Sumati Vishal Jain Book Bank will bring students pursing under-graduation in arts and commerce within the scope of its services.
It is extending its services in this manner to mark its silver jubilee. Since its inception in 1991, the book bank has been providing engineering students with textbooks as these are expensive.
Sri Sumati Vishal Jain Book Bank, which is a part of Sri Sumati Vishal Jain Educational Trust, was founded by a group of men hailing from Rajasthan — Harish Metha, Vimal Srisrimal, Kishan Srisrimal, Nirmal Nahar, Gautam Kataria, Kunal Nahar, Prakash Lodha, Uday Metha, Vinay Nahar and Deepak Gothi.
The objective of the book bank is to help deserving underprivileged students by lending them textbooks.
“In the last 24 years, we have been able to help over 10,000 poor students, distributing around 1,15,000 books. Today, when we find these beneficiaries placed in good jobs, we feel a sense of accomplishment. But for our donors, who have been with us all these years, this wouldn’t have been possible,” says Kishan Srisrimal, one of the committee members.
The book bank has a system in identifying its beneficiaries. It sends circulars to the various engineering colleges, and the principal of a college that has been approached has to send a list of the bona fide students who could be allowed to avail the service.
The beneficiaries will be expected to return the textbook upon the completion of the semester and they can borrow the books for their next term. It caters to close to 45 colleges in and around Chennai.
“We have encountered the problem of textbooks being returned to us torn. There have also been cases of books not being returned. We solved these problems with the help of the colleges. We also pasted a note on every book explaining how it should be handled. The other challenge is getting new versions of textbooks that have been updated. We try to stock these updated versions,” adds Kishan. Sri Sumati Vishal Jain Book Bank functions from Thirukumaran Apartments, No: 12, Rameswaram Road, T Nagar. For details, Kishan Srisrimal Jain at 98410 26268 / 044 - 2436 0675 or visit www.ssvjbookbank.org or write to jainbookbank@gmail.com.
