"In the year 2005, the state had 7,000 libraries and with an average increase of 500-700 libraries per year, today, we have 9,000 libraries across the state. Our aim is to have one library per village," said W H Kumthe, assistant director, Libraries, Pune division. It thus goes without saying that going by the fact that the state has 42,000 grampanchayats, the scheme growing at the current rate will be complete by 2075.

The scheme was launched by the government of Maharashtra in the year 1970 with a motive to promote readership in remote villages and to create more number of libraries across the state. As a part of the scheme, every year, grants are given to libraries in various categories starting with- startups as grade D going up to C, B and A- the established ones. "For the D grade libraries, the government grant is Rs 20,000 per year, the same for C is Rs 64,000, B- 1,28,000 and A- 1,92,000. Pune division that includes five districts like Sangli, Solapur, Satara, Kolhapur and Pune, has a budget of Rs 15 crores for the year 2009, that has grown by about four crores in the past four years," said Kumthe.

Source: The Indian Express Govt library scheme: growing, but at a lesser pace