Claims of e-governance in Jammu and Kashmir for digitization of libraries seems to be unsuccessful. Government took an unique initiative back in December 13, 2017 to connect with the National Digital Library of India (NDLI) to provide free access to the state’s students and academicians of around 1.5 crore downloadable e-books and journals.
NDLI is an online storehouse of e-books under the aegis of Union Human Resource Development Ministry. It has been developed by Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Kharagpur.
It was aimed to link the libraries in Jammu and Kashmir with each other and digitize them for the book readers which would help to get online access to the best possible educational resources.
As per reports, the project should have been completed within a few months but around four years have passed and the project is yet incomplete.
All district and some tehsil-level libraries have been computerized in J&K. Process for making all libraries totally digitized is on its way.
As per reports, books which have been digitized are yet not available for reading to the online users. The decision regarding the announcement of the date for making it public is pending.
In-completion of such projects shows the true picture of plans of the government in Jammu and Kashmir. Moreover, lakhs of rupees were spent for introducing Information Technology (IT) and e-Governance in routine working of the organization. But still the wait is not over for book lovers, students and many others to take advantage of this project especially in times of pandemic when public libraries are shut, waiting becomes tougher.
