Culture minister laments lack of funds for public libraries
TEHRAN.(Iranart) – Minister of Culture and Islamic Guidance Seyyed Abbas Salehi has lamented the lack of necessary funds budgeted to pay the staff working in public libraries.
He made the remarks on Sunday during a meeting with the new MPs at Majlis, the Iranian parliament.
He said that over 7,400 employees work at public libraries across the country, and the budget allocated to the culture ministry is not enough to pay them.
“Over 360 public libraries have been launched across the country over the past three years,” he stated.
“These libraries have worked as cultural clubs, which organized hundreds of reading competitions in the country. Only one million people participated in the Razavi Reading Competition,” he noted.
“Iran is not limited to Tehran,” Salehi said and added that his organization has considered other cities and towns across the country.
“Over the past year, the ministry has organized over 240,000 cultural events in the cities and towns, and allocated 12,000 billion rials to improve the cultural infrastructures in the remote regions of the country,” he added.
Source: Tehran Times