Space crunch at book fair due to construction work

New Delhi: Squeezed into half its normal 40,000 square metres, the ongoing World Book Fair at Pragati Maidan is suffering a visible space crunch with fewer stalls packed into a venue resembling a construction site.

High-rise scaffoldings interrupt the viewing and labourers scurry about doing their work even as visitors roam around the fair.

Organised by the National Book Trust (NBT) in association with the India Trade Promotion Organisation (ITPO), the fair is being held amid renovation and construction at Pragati Maidan. The number of publishers participating has come down from 800 to 600 and the stalls from more than 2,500 to about 1,350.

The exhibition centre, which was inaugurated in 1972 by then PM Indira Gandhi, is being re-built into an integrated exhibition-cum-convention centre (IECC). The mega project, according to the ITPO, is expected to be completed by September 2019.

According to an NBT official, the World Book Fair, which usually spreads over 40,000 sq metres, was allotted only 23,000 sq metres this year.

Publishers added that some participants did not get the location they wanted. While Bloomsb-ury was lucky to get 12 stalls, others like Peng-uin, Hatchette, Oxford University Press (OUP), and Pentagon Press managed with fewer stalls than previous year.

NBT officials said they tried their best to “acco-mmodate” more publishers. An official said, “We understand that some publishers this year may not have got the desired number of stalls. But that was only done to ensure that more publishers got the opportunity to participate in the fair.”

The lack of space has also meant a drop in attractions such as book launches and panel discussions. The Author’s Corner too has been reduced to two from four last year — one for English and one for Hindi.