 Bathinda Book Fair concludes, Books worth Rs 42 lakh sold.
The organiser of Bathinda Book Fair- 2007, Baldev Singh Baddan, chief editor and joint director, National Book Trust (NBT), India, is a happy man. And why not! For the first time ever in the history of book fairs organised by the NBT in Punjab, books worth Rs 42 lakh were sold at this ten-day long book fair, which concluded here today.
There were 43 stalls in total, in which 32 publishers from across the country displayed their books.
Rs 20,000 worth Britannica’s encyclopedias were sold by the Kolkata-based Standard Literature. Copies of Rig Veda and Ramayana were the bestsellers in Hindi, along with novels of Munshi Prem Chand.
NBT alone sold literature worth Rs 2.3 lakh. ``Gurdial Singh, Jaswant Singh Kanwal, Nanak Singh, Balwant Gargi and others were the bestsellers at this fair. Around 40 per cent books sold by the NBT were on Punjabi culture and 25 per cent on children’s literature,’’ Baddan said.
Jagroop Singh Brar, who is an MLA in British Columbia, Canada, also visited the book fair along with his wife Rajwant and daughter Noor. ``My eight-year-old daughter has bought almost 15 books, I have bought more than 10 and one of my friends, Martin Itsko, bought 10 books on India.’’
Rohit Jain of the Chandigarh-based Unistar Books and Lokgeet Parkashan, said, ``We have sold literature worth around Rs 2 lakh. More than 300 copies of writer Narinder Singh Kapoor’s book `Mala Manke’ were sold along with Mohan Bhandari’s edited version of Shiv Kumar Batalvi’s `Birha tu Sultan’.’’
Satish Gulati of Ludhiana-based Chetna Parkashan said, ``Around 15,000 books worth Rs 1.25 lakh were sold during this fair. Maximum sale was that of books by Paash, Lal Singh Dil, Sant Ram Udasi and Amitoj, along with others. Around 200 books of Paash alone were sold.’’
Sanjeev Sharma of Patiala-based Sohan Lal Madaan Book Sellers, who are also the distributors for Oxford University Press, said, ``Literature worth Rs 3 lakh was sold and the major sale was that of dictionaries, English grammar books, books on Sikh history and others. Our maximum sale came from English books.’’
Delhi-based Navyug Publishers sold literature worth Rs 50,000 while Sahitya Akademi, Delhi, sold books worth Rs 1 lakh alone.
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