Speaking to TOI, Subhash Dumbre, additional commissioner, PCMC, said, “The civic administration has allotted space for the library at Kasarwadi. We will spend Rs 20 lakh to furnish the 4,000-sq.ft hall in the property tax department building.”

P R Ahirrao, who will act as honorary secretary of the library, himself is a researcher who has written books on archaeology and Indology. Speaking to TOI, Ahirrao said, “I have a personal collection of 15,000 books at my home. I have been following the subject of getting space from the PCMC for a reference library for the past 10 years. Now, the administration has allotted 4,000 sq.ft space in the building housing the property tax department.”

An agreement was signed between the PCMC and the PCRI to establish the library during the tenure of the then municipal commissioner Dilip Band. The PCRI will run the library while the PCMC will provide Rs 1 lakh per year as grant and bear the salaries of the employees, he said.

“I had to go to the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute (BORI), the Bharat Itihas Sanshodhak Mandal, the Deccan College and the Gokhale Institute of Politics and Economics in Pune to conduct research. I wanted to have a reference facility to researchers from Pimpri-Chinchwad in the township itself,” said Ahirrao, explaining the reason for setting up the library.

“The facility has a seating capacity of 10 at a time for referring to old books. There will be an auditorium with a capacity to seat 100 people where lectures and presentations on archaeology and Indology will be held. Private organisations or people can also organise lectures and presentations here,” said Ahirrao.

Speaking about the collection of books in the library, Ahirrao said, “I have a collection of 15,000 books on various subjects related to archaeology and Indology. The oldest book in the collection is one printed in 1845 using stone printing technique. There are books on all religions and colour photographs of 160 cities across the world.”

He added: “A researcher from Indore has shown willingness to donate 3,000 books from his personal collection. Two scholars from Vadodara have also shown willingness to donate their personal collection of 1000 books each. Earlier, I could not accept their books due to lack of space at my home. After the library is opened, I will bring them here.”

The library will be useful for students doing M.Phil, Ph.D, special research in archaeology and Indology. Nominal fees will be charged to use the space. Facilities to scan or photocopy extracts of the books will be also provided at nominal charges.

“I plan to conduct courses to teach Modi script at the library. We also want to apply for University Grants Commission (UGC) recognition as a training institute for researchers. This will enable us to get grants from the government,” he added.

“The PCRI has already started work on creating an eight volume book Sanskrutichya Paulkhuna’ which will trace the history of the villages in the Pimpri-Chinchwad township. “Four volumes have been printed and work on remaining four is in progress. The first project of the reference library after it is established will be preparing a bibliography on Sant Tukaram,” said Ahirrao.