KARACHI, Aug 24: A piece of land on University Road allocated for a city library has been lying unutilized for the past 12 years.

Well-placed sources told Dawn on Wednesday that years ago the defunct Karachi Metropolitan Corporation (KMC) had held an architectural design competition for the city library. “The planners of the city library spent over Rs100,000 on the competition in which three winners received prizes submitting most suitable designs. But, work on the project never started. The engineering department has even lost the designs made by the winning architects,” they said.

They said the reason for selecting a place on University Road for the city library was that it was close to many educational institutions. “The city library would be very close to the students of the University of Karachi, NED University of Engineering and Technology, Sir Syed University of Engineering and Technology, Urdu University, Aligarh Institute, National Institute of Public Administration and National Institute of Labour Administration Training,” they maintained.

The sources said that the city government, preoccupied with civic problems, had neither the inclination nor the time to take care of the libraries bequeathed by the defunct KMC.

The libraries, before the introduction of the local government, were under the control of district municipal corporations. Their administrative control was given to union councils in accordance with the Section 76(f) of the Sindh Local Government Ordinance 2001.

They recalled that the KMC had at least five major libraries before the inception of the local government system. They were: Taimuria Library in North Nazimabad, Usmania Library in Nazimabad, Korangi Central Library, Liaquat Hall Library in Frere Hall on Abdullah Haroon Hall, and Lyari Textbook Library.

The district officer of the city government’s culture and sports department, Saifur Rehman Grami, told Dawn that the KMC used to run some 73 libraries, including reading rooms, in the city.

He said the libraries used to maintain a register in which the staff wrote the names of the books that readers asked for. “This they used to do in order to ensure that at the time of purchase of books, those volumes are bought which are in demand. This practice is still followed as much as possible,” he added.

The sources said the union councils operating in the city had not been able to add books to the libraries. “The paucity of funds has made the day-to-day running of the libraries a difficult matter. Previously, a librarian was appointed in the Grade 17 of the Basic Pay Scale. A few union councils have officials as senior as Grade 17. This is an administrative absurdity, which should have been taken care of,” they observed.

They said that the union councils, confronted with mounting civic problems, had ended up spending most of the development budget on construction of roads, repair of sewerages, etc.

Analysts maintain that the administrative control of libraries should be placed under a centralized authority, which can be tasked to run libraries in the city in the best possible manner.