LAHORE: The twenty-one fully functional e-libraries of Punjab Information Technology Board (PITB) are likely to be transferred to the Punjab Sports Board as PITB is unable to run the project, Pakistan Today has learnt.
According to well-placed sources, the project was a collaboration of PITB with the Youth Affairs, Sports, Archeology and Tourism Department on the directions of former chief minister Shehbaz Sharif.
After former PITB chairman Umar Saif left the department, no one in the board seems to care about the project, the sources said, lamenting that the project was being “politicised”.
Sources further added that the paraphernalia available with PITB made this project a success, raising questions that how can the sports board maintain the servers and such a database.
“It is predicted that other PITB projects would either be dumped or transferred to other departments as it lacks vision and technical minds post-Umar Saif era,” they said.
PITB Spokesperson Ammar Chaudhry told Pakistan Today that the decision in this regard would be announced soon. “21 fully functional e-libraries are likely to be transferred to the Punjab Sports Board and the decision might be announced soon,” he said.
The project was started in 2018 by PITB, and each e-library was established with an estimated cost of Rs 18 million to revive the culture of reading and learning among the general public, especially youth, families and senior citizens.
The libraries in were established in Okara, Toba Tek Singh, Rawalpindi, DG Khan, Faisalabad, Gujrat, Multan, Rahim Yar Khan, Attock, Narowal, Sahiwal, Muzaffargarh, Sargodha, Bhakkar, Gujranwala, Bahawalpur, Vehari, Mianwali, Lahore and Sargodha, with at least 9,000 subscribers in total.
Furthermore, the e-libraries aimed to establish a centralized digital library of e-books, e-theses, Pakistani laws, press clippings, annual company reports and indexes of Pakistani periodicals, documentaries and DVDs.
It also aimed at providing free, purchased, subscribed and indigenous e-resources and persuade authors/publishers to provide e-version of their publications for free reading and paid downloads via micropayments.
Pakistan Today learned that a central digital library had been established at the Punjab Information Technology Board data centre to provide online access to full-text e-books, e-journals, e-theses, online reference collections, Nobel laureate collections, documentaries, simulated videos, and other local and international resources. A union catalogue of e-libraries in Punjab had also been developed to facilitate sharing of resources across Punjab.