Bhubaneswar: The Commissionerate Police with the help of Bakul Library has set up a library at Isaneswar slum. Now, the brightly painted library has become the biggest draw for local children and youth.
The library has everything – from stories to picture books and study materials for competitive exams to subject-specific books. While bringing children back to the books is one objective, the library also wants to keep the adolescents away from negative influence.
The community library – set up in the slum as a part of Bhubaneswar police’s ‘Basti Ku Chala Abhiyan’ – aims to provide them a conducive environment to learn as the slum houses have little space for children and youths to study.
Earlier, Commissionerate Police had launched a library exposure trip for children living in slums under which they visit the Bakul library at Satya Nagar every week. The idea of opening a community library stemmed from one such visit to Bakul and from a Covid pandemic-induced incident.
Isaneswar is the first such community library to come up. It will be managed by Police Mitras, said Bhubaneswar DCP Prateek Singh. Police will also provide books and engage children and youth in different activities at regular intervals, Singh added.
The DCP during his tenure at Cuttack had opened three ‘Sahi’ libraries and all these facilities are currently functional. Police are planning to set up similar facilities in other slums of the city with the assistance of the local community.