Organisers of the Cuttack Book Fair at a news conference. Picture by Badrika Nath Das

Cuttack, March 4: Preparations have reached the final stages for Cuttack Book Fair, which is scheduled to start tomorrow.

The book fair, organised by the National Book Trust (NBT), in association with the district administration and the Orissa Publishers and Booksellers Association, is being held after a gap of three years.

The oldest city of Orissa, Cuttack is also considered as the intellectual capital of the state. It is the cultural, literary and educational centre of the state. Most of the reputed Oriya publishers have their roots in this city.

“We hope that the book fair will be a huge success as around 110 publishers are participating at the event this time,” said Pramod Sar, the NBT’s state secretary and officer-in-charge.

Around 55 publishers had set up their kiosks during the book fair held for the last time in 2008. This time, a total of 110 publishers from the state and outside will be participating in the book fair to be held at Bali Jatra ground.

The NBT organises book fairs and festivals in various parts of the country all through the year. These fairs set a stage for interaction among authors, publishers, booksellers, distributors and book lovers.

Books in Oriya, Hindi, English, Bengali and other regional languages would be available at the fair which has drawn positive response among the book lovers.

“We are looking forward to the book fair. Though similar fairs are regularly organised in the capital, it will be a golden opportunity for people like us to get access to a vast number of books of different languages,” said Sarmistha Sahoo, a local resident.

“Last time, the fair did business of around Rs 20 lakh. We expect that this time it will be higher as the number of kiosks has almost doubled,” said Bijayananda Singh, coordinator and deputy director of culture department.

Adequate measures have been taken to make the event a grand success. A number of programs would also be held during the nine-day long book fair that will conclude on March 13, Singh added.