February 19, 2002	Tuesday	Zilhaj 6, 1422

KARACHI, Feb 18: Residents of Old Golimar and adjoining localities have been deprived of a proper library by none other than their own elected representatives.

Two-thirds of Shah Abdul Latif Bhitai Central Library hall has been occupied by Naib Nazims of one of the 18 Towns. Insisting that they have no other place to set up their offices, the elected members of Site Town and their staff have moved into the spacious Site Town Hall building near Rexer Lane.

On a visit on Saturday, this reporter saw at least five cubicles under construction in the hall partitioned and usurped for the purpose. In one of these cubicles, yet to be completed and furnished, there were seven small wooden chairs around a table. A staff member of the Town Hall said it was the reading room. There was only one man looking at a couple of Urdu newspapers. This makeshift reading room might also be vacated when ready to house a Naib Nazim, a concerned resident says.

The library was set up in the Site Town office near Rexer Lane in 1976. “In fact, the whole building with a seminar hall and a Punchayat Hall besides staff rooms was meant for library purposes,” says a resident, adding: “Now squeezing it into a small place shows how much importance the then city administration accorded to education and culture and how much the present setup gives it.”

With a growing good collection of books, magazines and newspapers, it began attracting a large number of people. The visitors included women, schoolgirls, teachers and researchers.

As now as there is no seating arrangement in the restricted library area, and people, particularly women, have stopped visiting it.

“Around 60 to 70 visitors daily satisfied their thirst for knowledge here,” says a resident, adding that now the number has scaled down to 6-7.

A social worker, Ismail Khan, claims that the library daily received up to 15 newspapers besides a couple of English-language magazines. This number has shrunk to eight newspapers daily. “These papers, too, go onto the tables of the elected representatives.”

“The new occupants of the library discourage visitors,” says another resident. “One day they had even shut the gate to the public.”

Ismail Khan proposes that if it was at all unavoidable, the Nazims and Naib Nazims should have built their offices on the rooftop of the building, where there is a lot of open space for more constructions.

The Nazim of the Town, Amir Nawab Khan, says he is not much interested in this building as it is not conveniently located for most of the councillors and Naib Nazims coming from Manghopir besides Old Golimar.

He says he would have preferred a place near Habib Bank. “We had suggested that the old DC Office be handed over to us but this request of ours was not accepted, and we were given this building as being the sole place available for us,” Amir Nawab told Dawn. “As soon as we find a better place, we will move out of this building.”

The Town Nazim says he is not in favour of removing or restricting the library facilities, “but this is our compulsion.”

The Town Nazim’s office is outside the main building. Two offices have been set up in the Punchayat Hall. And several departments of the new setup are yet to be accommodated in the building.

The building’s status was first eroded in 1995 when the offices of the now defunct District Municipal Corporation (West) were moved here from Orangi Town because of recurring violence there.

Concerned residents say this further usurpation of the library hall is an attempt to keep a vast population from education and general awareness.