Abandoned police station turns library, beckons job aspirants in Telangana’s Asifabad

Once a strong bastion of Maoists, it is now a source of knowledge and jobs for tribal youngsters who are still deprived of access to such facilities

Kumram Bheem Asifabad: An abandoned police station in the Tiryani mandal headquarters, once a strong bastion of Maoists, has become a source of knowledge and jobs for tribal youngsters who are still deprived of access to such facilities. Thanks to the novel initiative of Asifabad Additional Superintendent of Police Sriramoju Chitharanjan, who is the driving force behind the unusual conversion of the police station into a library.

The Tiryani police station was abandoned after a claymore mine planted by Maoists was found in 1995. The derelict building has now been converted into a library. It has 300 books and the number is going up with many philanthropists coming forward to voluntarily donate study material after being impressed upon by the initiative of the police department. It is slowly becoming a temple of knowledge for tribal students.

“The police department has been organising various community outreach programmes in remote areas affected by Maoists for quite a long time. However, we still could not reach certain sections. To bridge the gap between the police and people, the library was established at the police station. We can easily build rapport with them,” Chitharanjan told ‘Telangana Today.’

Police renovated the building over three months. They changed the interiors, wiring and plumbing, besides providing furniture, chairs, tables and fans for the convenience of visitors. They created a serene ambience ensuring that visitors could stay focused while spending time in the library.

For a change, the police invited the youngsters to formally inaugurate the library instead of top officials of the department or the district administration. They deployed local youngsters to operate the facility. “The idea is to allow the locals to own the facility and to reap benefits out of it by managing it on their own,” Chitharanjan said.

Significantly, around 50 aspirants of government jobs and students are visiting the library every day, cheering the police officials. The visitors expressed satisfaction over the facility in the remote mandal headquarters. They opined that it would become a boon to tribals by helping them in cracking jobs with various departments.

Manga Sudhakar from Naikapuguda said the library would bring relief to aspirants of government jobs who were forced to migrate to Mancherial, Karimnagar, Warangal and Hyderabad cities for undergoing coaching. He thanked the police for converting the station into a library and transforming the lives of the tribals.