Despite all the abilities to spread knowledge throughout the district Jhenidah Public Library has allegedly failed to serve the purpose for years together due to lack of competent leadership. The library has no elected managing committee for the last 14 years, and any meeting of the general members was held in the last 15 years period. Though the establishment was a great affair here then, the beg
inning was surely much smaller. But by this long span of time the library has been shifted to a new place, at Adarsha Para, in the heart of the town. Now the library has its own land, some 33 decimals. It has a two- storied big sized buildings there. The buildings are also decorated with sufficient furniture also. There are over 10,000 books, including a number of rare books. It has also over 300 members in its record now. The library is also much solvent financially with the regular income of its monthly collected rents of the rented ground floors, members subscriptions, time to time donations from government and other sources. It has only four employees now. In every month its income remains surplus than its spending. But its main problem is lack of a competent managing committee. To run the library smoothly there is a constitution also. The constitution guides for fresh elections in every two years to elect the managing committee, except the president, as the Deputy Commissioner of Jhenidah be the ex-officio president according to the constitution. Defying the constitution the library has been running with an ad-hoc managing committee since 1997. Since then four ad-hoc committees have already been passed in the last 14 years. It is also now running by another ad-hoc committee. The Deputy Commissioner and also the president of the managing committee by virtue of his power vested by the constitution selects the managing committees. Normally they become the influential members of the ruling party. It is, however, always seen that the members of these selected body are not accountable to anybody. They are not careful to the causes of the purposes of the library. It is even alleged that by misusing their powers a number of secretaries of the ad-hoc committees had spent huge amount of money according to their whims and without any pre-sanction of the managing committees. Through this processes they had allegedly embezzled huge funds of the library and on audits it had already been proved. But the ad-hoc committees failed to recover these embezzled funds of the library till now. A number of secretaries of the ad-hoc committees even had taken away valuable properties, including fans, furniture, etc. from the library for their personal use also. One secretary had allegedly taken away valuable documents, including cash books. Cases and counter cases had also been lodged in these regards in the courts in recent past. The library had failed to call any meeting of the General Body since 1995, though the constitution guides this meeting within a year. The new secretary Khandaker Hafiz Faruk also called a meeting of the General Body on October 30 last, but it was later shifted. The members of the library, including the local intellectuals, feel that the library should be regenerated from right now and for it should be conducted according to its constitution. Its committees should be elected as the elected persons remain accountable to the electors and that is why tries to act according to the guidelines of the constitution to face the next elections. They further feel that the embezzled money of the library including all of its stolen properties and documents should be returned to the library immediately as the library is a public property. The authorities concerned should do accordingly without failing any time in this regard, local people hope.
