Prashant Bhilare, a young strawberry farmer in the Bhilar village near Mahabaleshwar (Satara district) who is also a gram panchayat member, is ecstatic to see lot of changes in and around his village in last one month.
The ground floor hall of his two storey house has been converted into a hot-spot-a small library of Marathi books pertaining to Chhatrapati Shivaji, Prashant's role model. Outside wall of his home has a beautiful painting of a fort built by Shivaji and inside there are chairs, tables, book shelves and of course strawberries to greet the readers. All with the support of the state government and people from different walks of life.
Prashant's home-cum-library-guest room is one amongst the 25 houses which are the part of Maharashtra government's innovative project 'Village of Books".
Chief minister Devendra Fadnavis officially inaugurated the project on Thursday. "Publication industry must come forward to make Bhilar as publication destination of India," CM urged.
The project which is on the line of 'Hay on Wye' of London aims to bring Bhilar on India's tourist map with the twin attractions-library and strawberry. All 25 hot-spots spread across the village have been decorated and given different themes such as children's books, novels, science fiction, sports, feminism and Diwali edition of newspapers.
Bhilar, known as strawberry village is about 250 kms from Mumbai and close to the twin hill stations of Mahabaleshwar-Panchgani.
Nanda Bhilare, who is also one the voluntary hosts in the project says,"We are proud to be associated with this scheme which is poised to become a national tourist destination with a different theme."
Villages also hope an increase in strawberry and allied businesses. "We hope tourists who come to Mahabaleshwar will now visit our villages to spend some time in libraries. This will in turn boost our sale of strawberries and products made of it," says Prashant.
The village has over 600 households, most are in involved in strawberry farming. Most of the produce is either exported or carried to nearby cities for sale.
The small village of Bhilar is about 250 kms from Mumbai and close to the twin hill-stations of Mahabaleshwar-Panchgani, in Maharashtra 'strawberry country'. It's scenic, green most of the year and pink in the winter cropping season. Now it is being converted into a book village.
Book enthusiast Vilas Bendre (50) who is a newspaper agent was possibly the first official visitor of this village who came down from Amble Village in Pune to Bhilar on Thursday.
"The government has kept around 15,000 books in these libraries. Most of them are donated by people," says Vinod Tawde, minister for Marathi language department thanking villagers for their enthusiasm and support. He also expressed his commitment to make this village win UNESCO the tag of 'Book capital' of the world.
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