SKOCH award for Gajapati for promoting reading

Berhampur: The Gajapati district administration bagged the silver in the prestigious SKOCH award for 2023 on Thursday for its library promotion activities in primary and upper primary schools being run by the scheduled caste and scheduled tribe welfare department.
District welfare officer (Gajapati) Santosh Kumar Rath received the award in an online function.
The SKOCH award was instituted in 2003 to laud people, projects and institutions that go the extra mile to make India a better nation.
To improve reading, writing and speaking habits of school children from Class I to VIII in all residential schools of the SC/ST development department, the district administration set up the child-friendly libraries in 50 schools from April 2022, said collector (Gajapati) Lingraj Panda. Altogether 10,044 students have benefited from the initiative.
The infrastructure facilities for the libraries of each school were developed by utilizing the funds from Integrated Tribal Development Agency (ITDA) and District Welfare Office (DWO), he said.
A dedicated room in the school called the library room was painted with colours, a television was installed and the books were colour coded, said Rath.
Besides books, the library also has puppets and story tools for primary students, he added.