Over Rs. 370 cr. library cess due from municipal bodies

The Department of Public Libraries is facing a fund crunch owing to local municipal bodies and gram panchayats not remitting the library cess collected from residents.

The dues have mounted to over Rs. 370 crore, of which the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagar Palike alone accounts for over Rs. 300 crore, Satishkumar Hosamani, Director, Department of Public Libraries, has said.

He was speaking to presspersons on the sidelines of the Sixth KSCLA international conference on ‘Paradigms of digital library, e-resources, open access and information and media literacy’ here on Friday.

Mr. Satishkumar said that the department was not able to initiate development works on its own because of the fund crunch.

“If we get the dues from the local bodies, it will help us upgrade the existing libraries and take up other development works. We have been doing correspondence seeking payment of dues, but to no avail,” he said.

Delay in the constitution of the book selection committee delayed the purchase of books for public libraries for 2012. In 2013, it was delayed owing to lack of funds. “Around 3,700 titles published in 2013 have been chosen by the book selection committee and we require around Rs. 15 crore to purchase them. Once we get the funds, the books will be procured and payment would be made immediately,” he said.

Mr. Satishkumar said that the department had initiated online payment to pay to authors and publishers after the purchase of books.

To a query, Mr. Satishkumar said that the department had 354 vacant posts of chief librarians, librarians, assistant librarians, library assistants, attenders and others and it had requested Karnataka Public Service Commission to conduct recruitment process to fill them.