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Publishers want to join as organisers

Staff Correspondent
With Amar Ekushey Granthamela expanding every year, it has been essential for Bangla Academy and the publishers to organise the fair jointly, according to owners of several publication firms.
Shakhawat Hossain Litu, proprietor of Parijat Prakashani, stressed the need, pointing out some instances of mismanagement this year.
"The academy should have provided the stalls with extra water to spray on the fairground to reduce dust," he said, adding that the task carried out by the academy staff in the morning was not sufficient to maintain a dust-free environment throughout the day.
He also noted the lack of enough tarpaulin for roofing of stalls and absence of it over the Nazrul Mancha, where the publication ceremony of new books is held.
"Besides, something must be done to clean the entrance to Suhrawardy Udyan, where food stalls have popped up here and there, leaving garbage piled up along the walkway," said Litu, whose publication house has been participating in the Agartala fair ofTripura, India for the last 13 years.
Chief Executive Officer of Anyaprokash Mazharul Islam said, "We could have used a larger space in Suhrawardy Udyan with bigger stalls to display all our publications, not just the recent ones." A larger space will also help arrange different programmes by writers, publishers, foreign guests, giving the fair an international milieu, said Mazharul, whose firm participated in the world's biggest Frankfurt fair in Germany.
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Osman Gani, president of Academic and Creative Publisher Association of Bangladesh, emphasised the urgency of highlighting the publishing industry more. He said they had already sent a letter to Bangla Academy in this regard.
He opposed this year's idea of keeping stalls of children's books on the academy premises, while sending the rest to the Udyan. All stalls should be in one place, he said.
The stalls of government organisations can be kept on the academy premises, as large pavilions on the Language Movement and Liberation War can be built there to display related books by different publishers, while actual sales will take place in the Udyan, he said.
Gani said the publishers were ready to provide all kind of support in organising the fair in a more planned way in the future.
He recommended that how this year's fair was organised be reviewed after its conclusion, and Bangla Academy, National Library Centre, and publishers start plan-
ning for a global standard fair jointly from October.
Alamgir Sikder Loton, president of Bangladesh Publication and Book Sellers Association, said the publishing companies wanted to engage in dealing with the problems centring around the fair.
Referring to the sale of pirate books on the footpath near the fair grounds, he said, "If we want to talk to police about it, we have to go to the director general [of Bangla Academy| now." It would not be necessary once the publishers join as organisers, he said.
The Bangla Academy DG in fact proposed that National Book Centre and publishers should come forward and share the cost and responsibility of organising the fair. He admitted that Bangla Academy lacked the expertise to host such a big commercial event, on which the country's publication industry depended heavily.
Yesterday, 107 new books arrived at the fair while 10 others, including journalist Mustafa Mollick's Roktakto Pilkhana, published by Shuchayani, were unveiled.