‘Book banks’ to be set up to encourage re-use of books in schools: Aruna Chaudhary
CHANDIGARH: The Education Department, Punjab, has decided to constitute ‘Book Bank’ in all schools of the state in order to save precious time and money of the student community. As per the decision, the students would be asked to submit their old books which in turn would be provided free of cost to others in need. Disclosing this in a statement here today, the Education Minister, Punjab, Mrs. Aruna Chaudhary said that every year the students purchase new books which results in huge amount of paper being used besides wastage of the precious academic time of the students due to time consuming process of printing the books. Not only this, but the students have to spend a great deal every year to buy new books. This explains the novel initiative of establishing book bank in the schools. The Minister further said that the constitution of the book bank is purely voluntary and is not binding on any student. She also elaborated that the students contributing towards the book bank must be incentivized which is being deliberated upon. Divulging more, the Minister said that the books under book bank initiative would be given free of cost to the students of concerned school. Disclosing further, the Minister said that in the aftermath of the decision by the department, those NGOs have also decided to co-operate in this unique scheme that were running book banks on their own level. She said that this path breaking initiative of the department would also result in preserving the environmental balance because the use of paper for printing new books every year would be lessened to a large extent.
