A library housing 25,000 precious books collected by social worker Pratap Singh Singhi for last 20 years was inaugurated in presence of BMC Mayor Anant Narayan Jena, Tourism Minister Ashok Kumar Panda, and former Chief Secretary Sahadeb Sahoo here on Sunday.
Known as Singhi Granthalay and Singhi Readers Hub, the library is located at Kalpana square and books on a wide range of subjects including heritage, architecture, nature, literature, art, sports, religion, politics, education, medicine, automobiles, engineering, agriculture and law etc are available.
Talking to mediapersons, Singhi said that generally the students visit book shops, exhibitions and select books of their choices but due to high cost factors they keep themselves away from purchases and get deprived of gaining knowledge. But this library would bring the opportunity of accessing the books free of cost, he said.
He assured to update the books from time to time. The library is managed by Singhi Charitable Trust under the care and guidance of trustee Dr Pratibha Jain and CEO Rabi Narayan Kar.
Apart from text books, there are displays of coins of 275 countries including the coins of Delhi Sultanate, Mughal, British, Portuguese and free India. There are paper notes of 105 countries in the library as well.