MUMBAI: The Navi Mumbai Municipal Corporation in Maharashtra has started library-on wheels in the corporation-run long-route buses so that commuters can make their journey pleasurable by reading books. NMMC is the first corporation to start such a bus library.
As a pilot project, the corporation on Sunday started the mobile library in two of its air-conditioned buses on Belapur- Mantralaya and Belapur-Kalyan routes. If it gets a positive response, the service would be started in over 1,000 buses.
Abhijit Bangar, the Navi Mumbai Municipal Corporation commissioner, conceptualised the idea along with its Transport Manager Yogesh Kaduskar and the Lets Read India foundation. “Reading content on social media does not enrich and empower us. Book reading is important when there is a lot of disinformation around you. Books are really true friends of the people,” Bangar said.
The bus library aims to cater to two types of people. “Those who were good readers but lost the appetite due to social media and the other who hardly read books. The bus library is a small effort by our corporation to bring the people close to books,” he added.
Kaduskar said apart from the books, people can scan the QR code pasted in front of their seats and get the stuff to read on their smartphones. “They get write-ups on various current issues like crypto currency, climate change etc. We have also made provision in the bus to get the commuters’ feedback on the types of books they would like to read,” he said.