Bihar Youth Force and Helping Hand Bihar have jointly launched a portal, gyandeepbookbank.in, to provide text books to underprivileged kids.

The two civil society organisations have approached private schools requesting the authorities to urge their students to provide their used books of previous classes to a book bank, which in turn would be provided to poor kids.

The organisations have joined hands to create a book bank for delivering free books to schoolchildren of underprivileged sections. Under this initiative, more than 3,000 books have been collected. The organisation will start donating the books by the year-end.

Rishikesh Narayan Singh, the mentor of Bihar Youth Force, said the idea is to connect children to the world of books who cannot afford to buy those. "Good education always requires a good source of knowledge. Incomplete knowledge is somehow equivalent to no education, and most of the times the reason is lack of resources. Since underprivileged areas have their limitations, a book bank has been started where they can get the resources," he said.

He added that they are planning to launch it in a systematic manner. "By the first week of September, we will start 10 book collection centres in areas like Boring Road, Kankerbagh, Ashok Rajpath, Bailey Road, Gandhi Maidan, Patliputra and Raja Bazaar. Around 50 members of both organisations are executing the task of collecting books," said Rishikesh.

Akansha Abhishek, the convener of Helping Hand Bihar, said: "So far, BD Public School, Loyola High School and Notre Dame Academy have provided the books and stationeries for the underprivileged kids and also promised to give assistance in future. Our target is to collect more than 1 lakh books and distribute them to institutions having students from underprivileged section. The idea was conceptualised by former director-general of police Abhayanand."

One can donate books online by filling the required fields on gyandeepbookbank.in. Members of the organisation will collect books, take what is valuable and distribute it through schools to children who do not have access to it.

Shaurya Pratap Singh, a resident of Ashiana Nagar has donated around 100 books. He believes it is a unique literacy programme that distributes books to needy children.

"Our education system is in bad shape, we need to encourage such ideas by helping these people. I just did what was in my hands. I also asked my friends and neighbours to donate books to the bank instead of selling it to scrap dealers," said Singh.

Tanvi, a Class VIII student of Notre Dame Academy, said she will be proud if her used books help other students gain knowledge. Along with drawing books, she has also donated colours and stationeries. "I have a good collection of story books and poems which I donated in the hope that some kids might like this and admire it," she added.

Brother Satheesh K. Don, the principal of Loyola High School, said: "The school administration liked the initiative taken by the civil society organisations. We have put up a notice on the school campus urging the students to donate their old books. It will help less privileged kids."