About 20 e-libraries have been closed in Punjab including the Attock district. The faculty members that were running these libraries were also terminated unannounced. The libraries provided over 50,000 e-books to the students free of cost. Not just that, a large number of hard copy books were also available to the students.
The initiative of e-libraries was established by the Pakistan Information Technology Board back in 2018 and ever since a vast majority of young adults have benefited from them. The online resource contained journals, children’s books, lectures, seminars, and many more. The initiative was fruitful for many people who cannot afford to purchase the books. The termination of staff contract was done due to the pretext of dangers posed by Pandemic.
The closure of libraries occurred in cities like Toba Tek Singh Muzaffargarh, Okara, Attock, and more. The e-library facility in the cities was very crucial and now they are gone. According to the details, the government of Punjab has handed over the e-libraries to Punjab Sports Board. Furthermore, the libraries are going to be run by the district office of the respective Sports Board. As the staff has been terminated, the Sports Board would certainly find it difficult to run the libraries claimed the news source.
Upon contact, the district Sports Board officer Attock Waheed Babar said that the e-libraries are partially terminated due to the Coronavirus and shall work like before once the pandemic situation is under control. As for the terminated staff, he showed optimism that the government would for sure offer better alternative staff for running the e-libraries.
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