Chennai: The 44th Chennai book fair, organised by the Booksellers’ and Publishers’ Association of South India (BAPASI), which has been witnessing overwhelming footfalls is all set to draw its curtains on Monday.
“The book fair has received an increased footfall this year, as more than 11 lakh readers have visited the fair until Sunday, which is higher than the previous year”, P. Mailavelan, Vice president, BAPASI, said.
Apart from increased footfall, the book fair has also registered higher sales this year. “During the 2017 book fair, we had sold 10 lakh books on the whole. But we have sold more than 12 lakh books this year. With one day remaining, we expect more sales,” he said.
The 13-day book festival has been conducted at Saint George Anglo-Indian Higher secondary school, Aminjikarai, with 708 stalls and 376 publishers. The books are being sold at 10 percent discount on actual cost, which is also a reason for the success of the fair.
To instil general knowledge in addition to subject knowledge, district education officials of Thiruvannamalai have sent 1,000 government school teachers to buy books, on Sunday. “This is the first time when the education department took this kind of initiative. The teachers stayed at the fair the whole day boosting the sales”, Mailavelan added.
The teachers said that the district authority had offered '1,000 each to buy books. “The higher officials insisted that we have to read a variety of books so that we could educate students on the wider manner”, one of the teachers said.
