MySuru: A police inspector in the city has started a reading library at the police station to push colleagues and visitors to read, instead of continuing to scroll their smartphones.
R Venkatesh at the VV Puram police station has managed to collect around 300 books for a small reading library, despite the high-pressure work schedule.
Venkatesh said that most of the time of people and part of police officers at the station continued to check updates and messages on their cellphones and waste their free time.
This can have an impact on their physical and mental health, he added.
To curb their social media obsession, the small library has been opened, he said.
The reading library has received praise from occupants and officers.
Gopal Krishna, a retired librarian, has donated several books to the library.
He praised the initiative to establish a library in the police station.
Books provide authentic information and develop awareness on readers.
“I visited the library and contributed several books,” he said.
The majority of 300-strange books are in physical and mental health, cleanliness, culture and life of freedom, junk and recipients of Jnanapeth.
To start, only Kannada booklets are saved.
Pavan BK, a police chief, said the library would encourage police officers to develop reading habits.
“The concept of the library at the police station is good.
The police who are at night can use the time to read books, instead being bound to their cellphones,” he said.
People who visited the police station to work related to their passports and other services had to wait to get signatures from the officer.
At that time, they could read about health and culture, said Venkatesh.
The reading library was opened by Mushtaq, a used book seller, in Vijaya Dashami.
Mushtaq has sold a book for the past two decades in the police station area.
Venkatesh also started the library at the Lakshmipuram police station when he posted there a few months ago.
The aim, he said, was pushing the police and the community to foster reading habits.
The inspector itself is a greedy reader.