TIRUVANNAAMALAI: The rural library at Narthampoondi near Tiruvannamalai has remained closed for the last six months as its librarian, Saravanan, whose wife Muniyammal was elected as Panchayat President of Narthampoondi, has been allegedly acting as a shadow president. The rural library, which comes under the Public Library Department, was inaugurated on October 28, 2003 with the objective of inculcating the reading habit among rural youth and to provide a wide range of books for rural book lovers. “At present the library has a total of 9,266 books covering topics ranging from literature to space science,” said sources at the district library.The library should remain open from 9 am to 12 noon and 4 pm to 6 pm on all week days, excluding Fridays, second Saturdays and government holidays. However, the library has not been functioning since Saravanan’s wife was elected panchayat president six months ago.“Saravanan is acting as the panchayat president and is busy with administrative works. In the last six months, he opened the library for just five days when officials from the district library came to visit. The books inside the library are gathering dust,” said a resident. Apart from the books, most of the villagers visit the library in the morning to read the six newspapers and 20 weekly and fortnightly magazines it procures. “Now, the newspapers and magazines are directly delivered to the panchayat president’s house. When we raised the issue, he told us that the library would be kept open only when he wished to keep it open,” said another villager, on condition of anonymity.District Library Officer M. Ramachandran, when contacted, said that frequent attempts to get clarifications regarding the defunct library have failed as Saravanan was not responding to phone calls.
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