the goan I network
MAPUSA
It appears the residents of Mapusa are forever doomed.
There is no decent auditorium in Mapusa and Ravindra Bhavan seems to be a distant dream.
But even as people lived in hope, the only public library that was available as a recreation facility was suddenly shut down by the Mapusa Municipal Council (MMC).
Three months after the century-old Athaide Municipal Library was closed for public, MMC is yet to find an alternate place for public reading in the city.
The civic body had closed the old municipal building which housed the municipal library on September 13 this year.
The Chief Officer Clen Madeira in a notice said since the old municipal building was in dilapidated condition and required urgent repairs, the municipal library will remain closed.
The council has now handed the library over to the Directorate of Art and Culture for setting up of a district library.
There is no timeline when the district library will come up and considering that the project may take years, avid readers and regular visitors at the municipal library are upset with the decision of the council to close down the library.
“The council in one stroke shut the library without even making a temporary arrangement for a reading room. What will the elderly and students who frequented the municipal library do now?” asked Allan Faria, a resident of Mapusa, who appeared visibly upset with the civic body’s sudden decision.
Faria recently wrote to the Mapusa Chairperson requesting him to reopen the reading room in the municipal library or at least find an alternate place for the public to read.
“It is more than three months since the decision was taken to shut the library but no alternative has been made to cater to the large number of children, men, women and senior citizens who regularly used the reading room and the municipal library,” Faria said in the petition which was signed by 14 other residents of Mapusa.
He has also suggested shifting of the reading room temporarily to the old Asilo Hospital which has been renovated by the Directorate of Health Services.
“Even two rooms in the building housing the North Zone Education Office next to the post office could also serve the purpose temporarily,” Faria said.
Several people refused to buy the argument of the civic body that the building was in dilapidated condition and needed urgent repairs.
“The strong Portuguese-era building is definitely not collapsing. The top floor may require some repairs but there is no danger for the ground floor,” said Milan Natekar, a retired librarian and resident of Mapusa.
She said the municipal council should not have shut the library overnight and instead looked for an alternate place first.
Mapusa Chairperson Ryan Braganza said the municipality was finding it difficult to find a centrally located place to temporarily house a reading room for the public.
“The Directorate of Art and Culture has a provision to pay rent if a private party offers premises. This will be purely a stop-gap arrangement but we have not been able to find an ideal place to locate the reading room,” Braganza said.
He further disclosed that the Bodgeshwar Devasthan committee had offered space but since it was a little away from the city the idea was dropped.
The 136 years old Athaide Municipal Library was established in 1883 by the Portuguese and named after Fr Francis Athaide.
Besides housing some reference books for the student community, the municipal library also subscribed to a range of newspapers and magazines.
A decade back a children’s section was also added to the library.
Apart from students who used to frequent the municipal library, the reading room was always busy in the evenings as people of different walk of life came to glance at the newspapers and the mags available in the library.
