Poor turnout in Ranchi Book Fair

Ranchi, Jan 19 (PTI) Poor turnout in the ongoing BookFair, organised by the National Book Trust, here has made thecity intellectuals worried over its future.

"The 9-day Fair which began on January 15 has a dailyaverage 3,000 footfalls with negligible sale of books tilltoday," an NBT official said.

A total of 85 stalls set up by publishers and bookshop owners across the country might well expect about eightlakh visitors in a city of 13 lakh people. "But that appearsto be a distant possibility despite it being a free-entrypremises," the official said.

"The figure of visitors may rise in the last two days,but that would not be an ocean of people going by the currenttrend and in no way compensate the already incurred losses,"he said.

Alarmed over the situation, several intellectuals andauthors urged media to initiate a special campaign to promotereading habit among the people, especially the youth, to keepthe Book Fair economically viable and maintain its annualappearance.

Those included Maithili novelists Vidyanat Jha Vidit,Siyaram Jha Saras, Hindi author Ratneswar Singh and Santhaliauthors K C Tudu and Digamber.