India’s First Floating Library Launched in Kolkata on Hooghly River

The moving library is called The Young Readers’ Boat Library which has over 500 collections of books in three languages.

You must have heard of India’s first floating post office located on the Dal Lake in Srinagar. But do you know about a floating library in the country? Yes, you read that right. India recently launched its first boat library on Kolkata’s Hooghly River. It has been introduced by the West Bengal Transport Corporation. The moving library is called The Young Readers’ Boat Library which has over 500 collections of books of different genres in three languages namely English, Hindi, and Bengali.

The floating library picks you up from Millenium Park and take you on a 3-hour long trip to Belur Math and then back to the original site. For enjoying the pleasant reading ambiance that the floating library provides, adults need to buy a ticket worth Rs 100. The cost of tickets for children is just Rs 50. The cost has been reduced for people below 18 years of age to promote and encourage the reading habit.

If you think that the concept of having a floating library is new, you are mistaken, Manhattan has such a library since 2014. Also, Bangladesh has a boat library on the Gumani River. Mostly unprivileged people come here.

Notably, Kolkata operates a tram library every day between Shyambazar and Esplanade.