India’s National Policy on Library and Information System: Key Recommendations

In 1985, the Government of India took a decisive step to organise its libraries into a single, purposeful system. The result was the National Policy on Library and Information System (NAPLIS), drafted by a committee under Prof. D.P. Chattopadhyaya, then Chairman of the Raja Rammohun Roy Library Foundation. The policy treated libraries not as isolated reading rooms but as connected engines of education, development, and citizenship. Its recommendations still shape how we think about public library networks today. Let us walk through what NAPLIS proposed and why it matters.

Why a national library policy became necessary 🔗

By the mid-1980s, the value of information for socio-economic development was widely recognised, yet libraries in the country had grown unevenly. Urban centres had reasonable access to books, while vast rural areas were left with little or nothing. Libraries were also disconnected from the education system and starved of consistent funding. There was no single framework tying them together.

The need for a coordinated national information policy had been building for years. The reasoning was simple: a lack of timely information slows down development programmes in every field, and libraries are no exception. Many developed and developing nations were already drafting such policies, and it was time to catch up.

How the policy was drafted 🔗

The Department of Culture set up the Committee on National Policy on Library and Information Systems on 7 October 1985. Between December 1985 and February 1986, the committee toured different parts of the country, consulting a cross-section of citizens, individuals, and institutions. An interim report came in March 1986, and the final report was submitted on 30 May 1986. The committee’s broad objective was to foster, promote, and sustain the availability and use of information, while upgrading existing services using the latest technology.

Strengthening free public libraries as a system 🔗

The first and most important recommendation was direct: the government’s foremost task is to establish, maintain, and strengthen free public libraries and enable them to work as a connected system rather than as scattered units. The word “free” mattered. NAPLIS held that libraries should be accessible to everyone regardless of socio-economic background, removing cost as a barrier to knowledge.

This idea of a “system” runs through the entire policy. A library was not meant to function alone. It was meant to be one node in a larger structure stretching from the smallest village up to the national level.

The rural public library as the main thrust 🔗

NAPLIS placed its strongest emphasis on rural areas. A village or a cluster of villages with adequate population should have a community library that also serves as an information centre. To make this practical, the policy suggested pooling resources from different agencies already working in the village, such as those engaged in public health, adult education, and local self-government, to build one composite centre.

Later, the Empowered Committee reinforced this vision, recommending that rural libraries be developed as community information centres serving adults, children, the educated, and the illiterate alike through reading materials and audio-visual aids. The collection would draw on information generated by various rural development departments, turning the library into a genuine resource hub for village life.

Connecting libraries with schools and adult learners 🔗

NAPLIS recognised that a library serves people across every stage of life, so it deliberately linked libraries with both formal schooling and adult education.

Integrating community and school libraries 🔗

The policy proposed an important link between the village community library and the village primary school. Where a school did not have a library of its own, the community library was expected to provide children with an adequate book-corner. This integration was practical and economical. Rather than building separate, under-funded facilities, NAPLIS wanted existing resources to serve children directly through a shared arrangement.

Libraries as centres for adult education 🔗

The community library was also expected to cater meaningfully to adult education. NAPLIS specifically advised making audio-visual aids available to attract illiterate villagers, recognising that printed text alone could not reach those still learning to read. This positioned the library as an active partner in literacy efforts, not merely a passive store of books. The same logic later led the Empowered Committee to assign community centre libraries an important role in the Adult Education Programme, equipped with the necessary audio-visual material.

The district library as the connecting hub 🔗

If the village library was the foundation, the district library was the keystone. NAPLIS designated it as the apex library for each district, with city, town, and village libraries forming its components. The district library was meant to do more than lend books. It was tasked with taking the leadership in establishing linkages between all other public libraries in the district and working towards resource-sharing across the area.

The policy also gave district libraries a strong social mandate. They were to provide learning facilities and recreation for people with disabilities, and where possible, district and comparable city libraries were to offer literature in Braille. Special services were envisioned for hospitals, prisons, and the infirm in their homes, ensuring that those who could not reach the library were not left out.

Serving special groups and children 🔗

NAPLIS asked for libraries to be built in areas with tribal concentrations or minority communities so they could develop their distinctive cultures, with the government encouraging such communities to build their own libraries through voluntary effort. The policy also wanted every public library to have a section for children, with separate children’s libraries stocked with attractive books and audio-visual material wherever possible.

Building state networks of libraries 🔗

The structural heart of NAPLIS was its vision of a connected network within each state. All libraries in a state were to form part of a single network, extending from the village community library through intermediate levels to the district library and finally to the State Central Library. This state network would, in turn, eventually connect to a national-level network.

The role of the State Central Library 🔗

The State Central Library, or the Directorate of Public Libraries, was assigned a crucial coordinating role. It was responsible for establishing uniform library procedures within the state and acting as the coordinating agency for all public libraries. In this design, the chain of connection is clear: village to town to district to state, with each level supporting the one below it and reporting up to the next.

Legislation, funding, and the central agency 🔗

NAPLIS understood that a vision without legal and financial backing would remain on paper. So it tied its recommendations to concrete mechanisms.

Library legislation in every state 🔗

The policy considered it vital that each state enact its own library legislation. It urged the Central Government to revise the Model Public Library Bill it had already prepared, drawing on recent experience, and to press the states on the importance of passing such laws. Finance for library development was to come from each state, either through general revenue or through local taxation, giving libraries a stable and predictable source of funds.

Strengthening the Raja Rammohun Roy Library Foundation 🔗

At the national level, NAPLIS recommended that the Central Government assist the states far more generously than before, and that the Raja Rammohun Roy Library Foundation (RRRLF) be suitably strengthened to function as the national agency for coordinating and assisting public library development. The RRRLF, an autonomous body under the Ministry of Culture set up in May 1972, was already the nodal agency for promoting and supporting the public library movement through financial and technical assistance to states and union territories. NAPLIS confirmed and reinforced that central role.

What happened after the policy 🔗

NAPLIS did not end with the 1986 report. The Department of Culture appointed an Empowered Committee, again under Prof. D.P. Chattopadhyaya, to lay out a programme of action; it submitted its report in 1988. A Working Group chaired by Ms. Komal Anand later examined how best to implement these decisions and submitted its suggestions in 1992, which the government accepted.

The long-term influence is visible today. The recommendations of the original committee contributed to the later formation of the National Knowledge Commission’s Working Group on Libraries and the National Mission on Libraries, set up in 2012 with the RRRLF as its nodal agency. The Mission carries forward NAPLIS’s core ambitions, including the creation of inclusive and accessible libraries with facilities such as braille corners for specially-abled users. In this sense, NAPLIS laid a foundation that successive initiatives have continued to build upon.

It is worth noting that several of the policy’s headline goals, such as a fully connected national grid of libraries and statutory bodies like a National Commission on Libraries, remained partly unrealised for many years, a reminder that policy vision and ground-level implementation do not always move at the same pace.

Why NAPLIS still matters 🔗

The enduring strength of NAPLIS lies in its systemic thinking. It did not treat any single library as the answer. Instead, it imagined a continuous chain linking the smallest village book-corner to the State Central Library and eventually to a national network. It connected libraries with schools, with adult literacy, with distance education, and with the specific needs of children, tribal communities, and people with disabilities. It also recognised that good intentions need legislation and dependable funding to survive.

For students of library and information science, NAPLIS offers a clear template for how a national policy can knit scattered services into a coherent whole, with each level having a defined and connected role.

What do you think? Which NAPLIS recommendation do you believe is the most relevant for libraries today: the focus on free rural libraries, the integration of libraries with schools and adult education, or the building of connected state networks? And if a fresh national library policy were drafted now, what would you add to keep libraries meaningful in a digital age?

References

1. https://ebooks.inflibnet.ac.in/lisp13/chapter/national-library-policy/
2. https://www.pib.gov.in/PressReleaseIframePage.aspx?PRID=1944323
3. https://origin-archive.ifla.org/IV/ifla74/papers/141-Reddy-en.pdf
4. https://www.online.rrrlf.gov.in/showAboutPage
5. https://currentaffairs.adda247.com/national-mission-on-libraries-scheme/