Ganesh mandals strive to keep children in the books

In order to preserve reading habits among children, a group of Ganesh mandals in the city have come together and decided to deliver 5,000 books on a door-to-door basis

In order to preserve reading habits among children, a group of Ganesh mandals in the city have come together and decided to deliver 5,000 books on a door-to-door basis.

HT Image

The books have been divided into age group categories and a parent just needs to give a call to respective volunteers and the books will be delivered at home free of cost.

Under the Jai Ganesh platform, volunteers from 16 mandals have started providing this service from Friday.

“Due to the lockdown, most of the children are spending time on smart phones and parents are also stuck since books stores are closed. So we decided to provide this service which will help children to stay connected with story books, general knowledge books and informative books about the nation’s history and current affairs,” said Piyush Shah, one of the volunteers.

According to age group, books have been divided into story books and drawing books for ages three to six, history books of Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj for ages seven to 11, India’s freedom stories including autobiographies of some of the great leaders for ages 11 to 14.

“A parent only needs to send the age of their ward and accordingly we will deliver a set of books at their place. Our aim is to divert children from the screen time. Staying glued to smartphones and television will kill their productivity at the young age,” said Shah.

A Ganesh mandal will have three or four localities under their belt where volunteers will deliver books.