Patna, (Bihar Times): Notwithstanding tall claims by the state government and the organizers the 12-day long 16th Patna Book Fair failed to yield desired result. The earlier arrival of cold wave, the presence of Saras Mela in Gandhi Maidan and lack of response for serious readership are reasons attributed to this lukewarm response. The Fair concluded on December 18.

pix: Manish Sinha

According to sources the total area in which this year’s book fair was spread was less than in the past. True, books on competitions, computers, etc sold in a large number the overall sale performance of the
serious books was not very encouraging.

Take the example of Pustak Mahal, which occupies one of the largest area in the Book Fair. In comparison to the last year’s sale of Rs 11,40,000 this year books worth Rs 11,55,000 were sold. Apparently this is Rs 15,000 more but, sources told BiharTimes that the actual number of books sold this year is less than the last year. “We sold Rs 15,000 more copies just because the prices of books have gone up and not because the sale has increased. This notwithstanding the fact that Pustak Mahal usually publishes popular books for students and not serious academic books. Rajeev of Cambridge University Press also said that last year’s sale was much better than this year.

However, books on 1857 evoked good response and almost similar was the case with the books on freedom movement. For example Khushwant Singh’s Train To Pakistan and the books written by Ramsaharan Sharma,
Satish Chandra and Shekar Bandopadhyaya were much in demand. India Wins Freedom, authored by former Congress President and India’s first education minister, Maulana Abul Kalam, also sold in a large number.

Demand for story books on children declined but the books on grammar, appropriate use of prepositions, phrases, proverbs etc increased, Yaqoob Ashrafi of Oxfame, a leading English language coaching institute of Patna, told BiharTimes.

Rajesh Gupta and Nand Kishore of Sahitya Akademi regretted that notwithstanding allocation of funds to the government institutions for buying books there was little or no institutional purchase.

Publishers say that most people turn out only for the sake of outing and not for purchase. When they saw long queue for the purchase of tickets worth Rs three they simply entered Saras Mela on rural development, organized by the state government. After all there was no ticket for this Mela.