Rourkela: A book fair, organised by Adarsha Pathagara, started on Thursday in Rourkela and will continue till 11 February.

There are 122 kiosks from various cities such as Bhopal, Mumbai, Calcutta, Gorakhpur, Delhi, Cuttack, Bhubaneswar and Puri, at the 25th edition of Rourkela Book Fair. Inaugurating the fair, CEO of Rourkela Steel Plant, Ashwini Kumar, said: "Interest for book reading has not diminished despite changing times and competition from the Internet and electronic media."

Abinash Das, a school student and a bookaholic, said: "It is a wrong notion that young people are not inclined towards books."

Das was not alone, he was at the fair with three of his friends. One of his friends said: "There are other children from our school here and I can see friends from other institutions also."

"I always come here because in Rourkela I get good response from Odia readers," said an official from a publishing house in Cuttack.

"Rourkela has a good readership for all kinds of books and we have never been disappointed," said Bikash Singh from Calcutta.

Bijay Malhotra from Delhi, who took part in the fair for the first time, said the response on the first day was very good. "I was surprised to see so many people asked about non-fictional books and this shows the interest of the reader," he said.

"I buy books for one year for my personal library," said Sree Kumar, who teaches management at a local college.

"I get good deals and good second hand books and novels at very affordable prices here," said Pradip Mohanty, a student of National Institute of Technology in Rourkela. "I am in the final year and in these four years I have never missed this fair," Mohanty said.

There will be various kinds of competitions, poetry recitals, book reading sessions, book inauguration and other literary activities every evening. "For us, books and culture are two sides of same coin so we have both," said the general secretary of book fair organising body, Gopinath Khuntia.