NRI, Dr Jaswant Singh from Michigan started Mobile Library Service in Punjab

Michigan, USA
By Gary Singh

• NRI, Dr Jaswant Singh has set up the Anant Memorial Charitable Trust in the memory of his father.
• Estimated budget for first five years, Rs 80 lakh
• The bus cost him 22 lakh, annual running expense-four lakh.
• A bus chugs into the villages of Punjab and parks itself besides a shady tree where children line up to enter their library.The Mobile Library Service cover population of 10,000 of four villiages

SLICE OF LIFE

Stop here for books
An NRI librarian abandons hope of Punjab ever setting up public libraries. He starts a lending library in a bus that makes weekly trips to villages

Chandigarh, June 26, 2005
BAJINDER PAL SINGH
Indianexpress


CHANDIGARH: WHEN eleven-year-old Mohini waits in her village for the air conditioned bus to arrive, she is not getting ready for school. It is not work either. But a one hour getaway, with lots of fun and yes, education too.

It is a weekly bus, huge by even Punjab standards, with the luxury of squatting on the floor or just browsing through books. Books you said? And a bus? Well, the mobile book van has just arrived in her village. Like every week, courtesy the brain wave of an NRI librarian who realised that the state would never set up public libraries, a bus chugs into the village and parks itself besides a shady tree where children line up to enter their library.

Years of cajoling officers, pleading with them to establish public libraries in Punjab never helped. So one morning, with a few lakhs saved from retirement benefits, this retired librarian from the US decided to set up a mobile library. ‘‘Let the village child discover the joy of books,’’ Dr Jaswant Singh says. For most children in rural Punjab, books continue to be a luxury despite the affluence. In Punjab villages, where ostentatious living standards has meant that houses have DVD players, but no books, not many gave Singh a second chance.

The bus which has bookshelves instead of seats, goes from one village to another, stopping by for an hour for the children to borrow books. It arrives again at the same time next week, so that children can return the books and borrow new ones.

Like Mohini, for almost all the village kids, the bus is the only library they have ever seen. The schools do not have a library and book collections are rare to find. Collections of Sikhs scriptures is what the printed word means for many. ‘‘And there are imported books as well,’’ says Jeewandeep, who is astonished at UK printed books which have dual language story books in English and Punjabi.

THE big bus trying to negotiate narrow village roads is a strange sight. It took a lot of effort to put it on road. No one was ready to make such a bus. ‘‘For months, I just wandered from one builder to another explaining them the details.’’ Even when it was ready there were some structural defects that took two months to be put right.

In the nine months that it has run in the three chosen villages of Jurahan, Ranguwal and Fullowal in Ludhiana, it has notched a membership of 300. Membership fee is just Rs 10 for which you get a withdrawal card.

Singh spends close to four months a year in Punjab for the project. His friend Prof Amarjeet Singh runs the show in his absence. The bus cost him 22 lakh, while the annual running expense is another four lakh.

Today, encouraged by the success, NRIs have started approaching him for creating more such buses for their village. One of them is converting his old ancestral house into a library. Singh’s wife is also a librarian, and he himself has been regional media director in Michigan in the US.

His aim is grand. There has to be a mobile library in each of the 180 blocks in Punjab, Singh asserts. He is flying back to US this week, but promises to come back with more funds, courtesy his US based foundation. More buses, but more important, with more books.

It is a dream come true for NRI Dr Jaswant Singh who started Pahiyanwali Library Sewa at his native village Judahan.

He has used his more than 15 years of experience of serving as librarian in the US for the mobile library.

The library has more than 1,600 books on all subjects, one trained driver and a part-time library manager. Dr Jaswant Singh said, ‘‘I along with my wife Jasjit Kaur who is also serving as librarian in the US made 90 per cent efforts while the 10 per cent contribution we got from other NRIs.

The library has been set by the Anant Education and Rural Development Trust with an investment of Rs 22 lakh and its annual expenditure will be between Rs 5 lakh and 6 lakh, which will also be incurred by the Trust.’’

To begin with, the library which was inaugurated today by Prof Prithpal Singh Kapoor, will go in three villages on every Thursday, said Dr Amarjit Singh, member of the Trust, who retired as the Head of Department of Journalism, Languages and Culture from Punjab Agricultural University, Ludhiana.

He said, ‘‘Today, the library visited villages Judahan, Rangoowal and Phallowal, where books were issued to readers and they were also given the time table of the mobile library, so that more people can know about the timings of the library, so that they may get the books issued and return them.’’

Dr Jaswant Singh said, ‘‘Next Thursday, we will go to the same villages and collect the issued books. This way every Thursday we will cover three new villages and slowly we will visit more villages on other days of the week.’’

Dr Jaswant Singh, who was a lecturer at Malwa Training College, Ludhiana, went to Canada in the mid-sixties and from here he moved to the US in the ’70s and worked as a librarian there for more than 15 years. He said, ‘‘For five months, I stay in India and for seven months in the US. In my absence, the other members of the Trust, Dr Amarjit Singh, Ved Prakash, a retired teacher, Manmohan Singh Virdi, a PCO owner, and Manmohan Singh Gujjarwal, who will see legal aspects and other problems of the library, will take care of the library.’’

Jaswant Singh who regrets that the Punjab Public Library Act is not being passed by the state government as it is still lying pending in the office of the Education Secretary. If this is passed, any village can open a library, they can do so with the help of the state government, locals and NRIs. Since 1993, I have been urging the officers of the Punjab government to pass this Act, but in vain.

Crusader against illiteracy

Chandigarh, November 2, 2004
Tribune India.
Mahesh Sharma

After winning many awards in western countries, Dr Jaswant Singh is determined to work for the education of the rural section in Punjab. He, along with his associates, has launched a crusade against illiteracy and ignorance through the Anant Education and Rural Development Foundation. He was also determined to get the Punjab Public Library Act passed by the state government.

Though various organisations in England, the USA and Canada honoured him for his work, he yet to be recognised in his home state.

The inauguration of the first phase of multicrore projects will be done by the Deputy Speaker of the Lok Sabha, Mr Charanjit Singh Atwal, on Wednesday. He will also inaugurate Mobile Library Service for a cluster of villages including Jurahan (native village of Dr Jaswant Singh), Ranguwal, Jand, Phallewal, Kalakh and Dhulkot.

The project will be started with one bus covering all 138 blocks in the state. The estimated budget for first five years amounts to Rs 80 lakh which would be met by the contributions of members of the Anant Memorial Charitable Trust, Jurahan in Ludhiana district. The first phase of the project is dedicated to the Guru Nanak Dev Birth anniversary, claimed organisers of the library.

Commenting on the state of awareness in the rural area, Dr Jaswant Singh said it was unfortunate that the successive governments had ignored the concept of libraries and emphasised more the need of casinos.

Though Dr Jaswant had been imparting education in Panjabi University, Patiala, he left the job as the authorities did not confirmed his job and gave appointment on a contract basis.

He had also tried to get the Punjab Public Library Act enacted by the state government but with no avail. He said, “Had the state government passed the Act, the state could have contributed much more in the central pool of the civil services as the availability of books would have inculcated reading habit among children”. He also recounted the efforts made by Dr Amarjit Singh, former DPI, and Mr N.S. Rattan former civil servant.

Besides being the proud winner of the Elizabeth Siddall Award from the Michigan Education Association in recognition of his work as an educator in the USA, he had been recipient of the United Nations Award, the Loy Lasalle Award (by the United Nations Association) and many more prestigious awards.

To educate children about the library service, to promote literacy rates in schools, to provide a model for the local government, to generate “grassroot” support for public library and the immediate enactment of the Punjab Public Libraries Bill are the motives behind the launching of the project

Dr Jaswant Singh with his mobile library; and (right) inside the library. — A Tribune photograph

Mobile library service launched

Ludhiana, September 14, 2004
Our Correspondent , TRIBUNE

Mobile library service has been launched in five villages near here with the idea of imparting education to children and adults. The spirit behind this service is an NRI, Dr Jaswant Singh , who hails from Jurana village in Ludhiana district. The service will cover villages namely Jurana, Rangowal, Jand, Phallewal, Kalakh and Dhurkot, covering a population of more than 10,000.

Dr Jaswant Singh is settled in the USA in Michigan. He has set up the Anant Memorial Charitable Trust in the memory of his father. Earnings from a small piece of land in the village also go for the library service.

Dr Jaswant Singh who was a lecturer in the local Malwa Central Training College earlier, tells that it was his dream to serve the people of Punjab after retirement and impart them education through library services. At Ludhiana, he was teaching geography and school administration. The aim of the service is to educate children about what library service is and how to use this service and to promote literacy and decrease the dropout rate in schools. This was also aimed at providing a model for local governments (panchayats) to see the role of the public libraries.

There are about 1600 books, magazines and other forms of education media available in the mobile van with two computers. The mobile library has cost Rs 22 lakh and the recurring expenditure every year will be about Rs 6 lakh to Rs 8 lakh. The first book mobile service was started on November 2003 last year on the birthday of Guru Nanak Dev. Dr Jaswant Singh says, “We are launching this service on the guidelines UNESCO”.

Dr Jaswant Singh, who left for Canada in 1964, taught social studies and Canadian history in Canada and in 1970 he got a scholarship from the Canadian Government for studies in the library science at Michigan University where he did his Ph.D in library administration and settled there. In 1983, he returned to India and got a job in Punjabi University as a Reader but had to resign in 1986 and went back to the USA. Before leaving for the USA, he decided to launch library services in Punjab and asked the Punjab Government to enact a law of Punjab Public Library Act.