Shahabuddin's Correspondence with Lok Sabha

I- Letter to Speaker, 10 November, 1999

The Parliament Library has an Urdu Section. However, recently the Urdu books were removed from their repository behind the Librarian's Office to a far off corner in the mezzanine and literally dumped there. The books of all the National Languages continue to occupy the same hall. Urdu alone has been thrown out.

Secondly, I am a regular user of the library for the last 20 years. Hardly any new books have been added to the Urdu collection of late. May I, therefore, request you:

a) to restore the original repository of Urdu books – at least to stock them on the main floor of the library;

b) to have them properly categorised and arranged;

c) to spend at least 5% of the annual acquisition budget on purchase of Urdu books, in consultation with the Urdu-knowing MP's and ex-MP's.

Il- Reply from Lok Sabha Secretariat, 1 December, 1999

Regarding shifting of Urdu books to the Mezzanine floor, I may like to mention that we have been forced to resort to this relocation in our continuous search for space to accommodate the evergrowing collections. In this process we had even to shift books pertaining to certain other regional languages section to one of the buildings outside the Parliament premises. We also must admit that some derangement in stacking during the shifting process had indeed taken place but the same has since been rectified.

As regards spending any fixed percentage of the allocated budget on Urdu books, it may be stated that normally books in regional languages are received gratis under the Press and Registration of Books Act. However, specific suggestions for acquisition of regional language books received from users are considered favourably ...

III - Shahabuddin's Rejoinder, 7 Dec., 99

Thank you for your letter No.9/2/99/LY(FF) dated 1 December, 1999 regarding Urdu Section of the Parliament Library

You will appreciate that all books published in India including Hindi and English books are received gratis in the Parliament Library under the Act cited by you. Yet the budget is largely spent on purchase of English and Hindi books. I would request you to check and let me know the total amount spent on purchase of books during the last 5 years and its break-up by foreign and Indian origin, the latter language-wise.

I would also request you to have a separate cataloguing of Urdu books and of all books by language for ease of reference. I hope that as soon as the new building for the Library is available, books in Urdu and other national languages, apart from Hindi, shall be properly stocked.