Chowrangi

Fasahat Mohiuddin reports in the News about a 20 year old library of now-defunct Karachi Development Authority (KDA), containing rare books and survey maps of Karachi, which has been closed down and it now wears the look of a junkyard.

The library located on the second floor of Civic Center was full of rare charts, maps, drawings, survey reports and master plan reports, but these rare manuscripts are now covered with thick layers of dust.

During his visit to the place he found that all the library books, magazines, rare photographs and old pictures of Karachi have been abandoned just like trash under darkness.

One of the employees present at the library, said: “We are making a digital library”.

On a query, he said: “As you know it is a practice in Pakistan that all old things are taken as scrap and these books are now just a trash”. He, however, added that they were in the process of making a digital library.

This Master Plan Library came into being when Civic Center was established in 1984-85. The library possessed master plans of all major cities of the world while satellite maps were imported from France at that time. It was a consulting place for engineers, town planners and students of NED and Sir Syed University of Engineering and Technology (SSUET).

Previously Frere Hall Library of the defunct KMC has also been closed and declared prohibited area for public.

It seems that the CDGK is only interested in digging roads around the city and does not give a damn about libraries and literacy of the public.

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