Udupi,(The Hindu): Foundation stone laid for new building of District Central Library in Udupi. Vinay Kumar Sorake, Urban Development Minister, said on Saturday that a library was not a place where books were available, but a centre for knowledge.

He was speaking after laying the foundation stone for the new building of the District Central Library near the Town Hall, here.

The new building will be constructed at a cost of Rs. 5.18 crore and come up on 20 cents of land. It will be a two-storey structure.

While the basement will be used for parking, the ground and first floors will house the reading rooms and administrative offices. The second floor will have a computer lab and a centre for training youth for civil services examinations.

Mr. Sorake said that the location of the new building next to the Town Hall was most suitable as it could be provided easy accessibility. There were a lot of government schools in the district and the Department of Public Libraries should start libraries in such schools in the gram panchayats.

Most Udupi youths preferred professional courses such as engineering and medicine. The training centre at the library would help in training students for civil service exams. This would open another career avenue to the students of the district, Mr. Sorake said.

Presiding over the function, Pramod Madhwaraj, MLA, said that so far only Rs. 1 crore of the Rs. 5.18 crore for the construction of the library building was available. The remaining amount would be collected as soon as possible, he said.

Meenakshi Bannanje, president of Udupi City Municipal Council, said that youth should give more importance to reading books instead of watching television.