One million books to be offered by sale at Bangalore Book Festival

Bangalore, July 31 (UNI) Nearly one million books will be up for sale at the fourth Bangalore Book Festival, dubbed as the second biggest festival in Asia, after Kolkata, commencing on September 21.

The ten day festival that has attracted Indian and Foreign publishers was a continuous aim of the Bangalore Booksellers and Publishers Association to inculcate the reading habit among the people, Association President Balram Sadhwani told newsmen here today.

In the last event retail sales to the tune of Rs.20 crore was reported. In addition the institutional sales was phenomenal, he added.

A veritable feat to book lovers the festival would have a significant regional flavour with local language, Kannada, alone contributing to 20 per cent. Besides English books in Telugu, Tamil, Hindi, Bengali and a few other foreign languages would also be exhibited, Mr B S Raghuram, Managing Director of Klub Class, joint organiser of the Festival said.

For the first time in the country, in a pre-event release the organisers would offer Book tokens to the visitors that would enable them to have a free entry for two persons, besides a ten per cent discount on the books they purchase. Mr Raghuram expected that around 1.5 lakh book tokens, each of them costing Rs.40, would be bought before the show. ''This will make a huge difference to the book buying experience of people'' Mr Sadhwani said.

UNI