PANJIM: The State government on Monday informed the High Court of Bombay at Goa that nearly 80 per cent of the work of air-conditioning at the Central Library, Patto-Panjim has been completed.
Last year the High Court had taken suo motu cognisance of the media reports regarding non-functioning of air-conditioners in the Central library. It had expressed concern over protection and preservation of thousands of books including 40,000 volumes of the pre-Liberation collection of books housed in the library.
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Later, the government awarded Rs 2.1 crore work order for the replacement of the existing air conditioning system at the Library to the Aprant Motors. The air-condition system installed in 2011 had stopped working in 2019. The contractor is expected to complete the air-conditioning works by March this year as per the tender. During the previous hearing, the court had asked the curator to submit report about the progress of the air-conditioning works.
The Court has appointed Adv Eshan Usapkar as amicus curie in the matter. The State government has claimed that no books, manuscripts and other documents have been damaged due to non-functioning of air-conditioners. The process of digitisation of old and rare books and documents is also in progress.
