More than one cr books sold in Chennai Book Fair

Chennai, Jan 22 (UNI) The curtains of the 12-day annual Book Fair, which came down last evening, turned out to be a resounding success with the sale of more than one crore books and a record of about 7.5 lakh visitors visiting the fair.

''The fair is an eventful one and turned out to be a big success,'' a delighted Mr Gandhi Kannadasan, President of the Book Sellers and Publishers Association of South India (BAPASI), which organised the fair, told UNI here today.

''Though it's difficult to quantify the book sales in terms of money value, about 1.5 crore books would have been sold, considering that a record 7.5 lakh people had visited it.'' ''We also know the loads we brought in and take back. We also filled up books everyday. Easily one to 1.5 crore books would have been sold,'' Mr Kannadasan said.

He said the turnout of visitors was also huge this time as the event was held in a more spacious venue than the traditional Quaid-e-Millet college in Anna Salai.

''Going by the sale of entry tickets and the complimentary passes we issued, on an average 60,000 to 70,000 people visited per day and it touched one lakh to 1.10 lakh on holidays.'' ''On the final day we had an extraordinary crowd with more than one lakh visitors flocking it. As the closing time of the fair drew near, we still had a large queue waiting outside. We had to open the gates free for them,'' he added.

Chief Minister M Karunanidhi, himself, an avid reader and renowned writer, had inaugurated the fair on January ten, presented a personal contribution of Rs one crore to honour five writers every year.

He was presented more than 500 books by all the publishers.

UNI