Book stalls to be set up at railway stations, airports

New Delhi: To encourage people to read books, HRD Ministry would approach the Railway and the Civil Aviation ministries to set up book stalls of National Book Trust (NBT) on platforms and in airports. "We will get in touch with the Railway and the Civil Aviation ministries to enable NBT to set up book stalls in all railway stations and airports. Not only that, books of all languages would be available in these stalls," Human Resource Development Minister Smriti Irani said on Saturday.

The Minister was addressing the inaugural function of the New Delhi World Book Fair. Earlier, speaking at the event, noted writer Narendra Kohli suggested using railway and airport infrastructure to good use to open book stalls as the footfalls there are usually high.

He said there was still a disconnect between publishers and readers. While publishers rue that there are lack of readers, book lovers on the other hand lament that books are not easily available to them. Opening more book stalls was a viable solution to encourage and generate interest in book reading, he said.

Irani suggested NBT to also publish books of budding and young writers in regional languages and setting up of book clubs in every district of the country to inculcate among the masses the habit of reading books.

She also announced her Ministry's plans to launch an initiative called 'shodh yatri' under which a five-member team of youngsters, a writer and a historian would be set up for travelling to trace their roots and publish their findings in the form of a book. Emerging literary voices from the North-East is the theme of the New Delhi World Book Fair organised by NBT, with Singapore being the guest country and South Korea the focus country.

A total of 30 countries are participating in the fair, which began in 1972 and is now considered "a major international event in Asia". Singapore has lined up various literary programmes at 'Events Corner' themed on "Diverse Culture Distinct Literature." Over 10 countries have programmes in the events corner.