The Department of Mass Education Extension & Library Services being a service oriented Department is sensitive to the aspirations of the various cross sections of the people, with particular focus on women and marginalized sections of the society. At the same time we are keen to preserve and protect our rich cultural heritage through our Departmental activities, particularly in the matter of maintenance of Libraries and their rich collections of Books – ancient and contemporary.
Under the department, there are two Directorates – Directorate of Mass Education Extension and Directorate of Library Services.
Directorate of Mass Education Extension focusses on providing educational opportunities for the disabled children so as to facilitate their retention in the school system through Sponsored Special Schools and also focusses on children of economically weaker families for their stay and education in the Educational Welfare Homes. The Directorate puts special emphasis to improve access to the vocational training programme tailored to the need of today’s market in Shramik Vidyapith so that more unemployed youths are trained and become self employed.
Under the Directorate of Library Services, there is a strong network of Public Library System of 2480 Public Libraries under Directorate of Library Services, comprising of 13 Government Libraries, 2460 Govt. Sponsored Public Libraries and 7 Govt. Aided Libraries run by voluntary organizations.
The Govt. Libraries have the State Central Library at the apex of the Public Library System in the State. Besides, there are 7 Districts Libraries, 4 Town/ Sub-divisional libraries and 1 library of special status, namely Uttarpara Joykrishna Public Library.
In addition, there are 2460 Govt. Sponsored Public libraries which include 19 District Libraries, 232 Town/ Sub-divisional libraries, 2209 Primary Unit / Rural / Area Libraries, having sanctioned strength of 5900 employees, with total no. of books at nearly 1.80 crore and the total no. of members enrolled at nearly 31 lakhs (as stood on 31.03.2015).