Dry spell at 13th Educational Book Fair

Nepal Educational and Book Fair, Nepal’s largest educational and book fair, concluded its 13th edition last Saturday. Unlike last year, when the presence of Bollywood veteran personality Dev Anand in the inauguration ceremony created quite a buzz, this year’s event didn’t stand out in the media which affected the number of visitors and book sales. According to the organizer, Global Exposition and Management, more than a hundred thousand people had visited the fair last year.

Although there were more book activities to cover this year, it didn’t generate much media coverage. Writers Karna Shakya, Jagadish Ghimire, Sushma Joshi, Krishna Dharabasi, Krishna Thapa signed their books at the fair. However, publishers blamed the political scenario, economic recession and the coinciding of exams for the decreased turn out this year.

According to Anjan Shrestha of Educational Book House the number of vistors has gone down by one fourth compared to the last year. He also expressed his worry regarding the future of the educational fair if such trend continued.

Another reason for the less turn out was the lack of new books. Most of the stalls were selling the same books that could have been bought at the bookstore itself. Unlike last year where Penguin had put up a wide range of books, its stall this time around seemed almost deserted. Similarly, Oxford University Press’s stall also had similar picture. There weren’t enough books to fill the stall’s space. Sales manager of these stalls blamed the Terai bandas for the unavailability of new books.

Saurav Rai, an engineering student, said that this year’s fair was lack lustrous compared to last year. “Except for Paulo Coehlo’s Winner Stands Alone I couldn’t find any new book”, he whined.
“Participation of educational consultancies did help in bringing more visitors in the first few days but after they removed their stalls, the number of visitors declined visibly”, said Pravin Bista, one of the volunteers at the fair.

Blame it on the organizers’ mismanagement, the political scenario or the growing inflation, the number 13 seems to have actually brought in plenty of setbacks in this edition of Nepal Education and Book Fair.