As per the Seventh Schedule to the Constitution of India, the subject of ‘Libraries’ falls under the State List, and public libraries function under the administrative control of the respective State/Union Territory Governments.

As per records available with the Raja Rammohun Roy Library Foundation (RRRLF), Kolkata—an autonomous organization under the Ministry of Culture—library legislation has so far been enacted in the following 19 States/Union Territories: Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Maharashtra, West Bengal, Manipur, Haryana, Kerala, Mizoram, Goa, Gujarat, Odisha, Uttarakhand, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Arunachal Pradesh, and Telangana.

The Ministry of Culture, through the Raja Rammohun Roy Library Foundation (RRRLF), Kolkata—an autonomous organization under the Ministry—provides financial assistance for the development of public libraries across the country under its approved Matching and Non-Matching Schemes.

Further, under the National Mission on Libraries (NML) Scheme, financial assistance is provided for the component ‘Setting up of NML Model Libraries’, which includes support to one State Central Library and one District Library in each State/Union Territory, as recommended by the respective State Authorities, in addition to six libraries identified by the Ministry.

This information was given by Union Minister for Culture and Tourism Shri Gajendra Singh Shekhawat in a written reply in Lok Sabha today.

 

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Sunil Kumar Tiwari

pibculture[at]gmail[dot]com

(Release ID: 2149250)