Siliguri, Jan. 22: The book fair grounds wear a deserted look. A range of books, from classics to comics, at discounted prices, has not been able to pull in the crowd busy celebrating at Siliguri Utsav.

Sanjeev Sharma, the only customer at stall number five of the fair at Kanchenjunga Stadium, browses through the volumes of Encyclopaedia Britannica.

“He is interested in purchasing the series, but sadly, does not have the money to afford it,” the stall in-charge of Standard Literature Associates, T.K. Chatterjee said.

Without sales to show on the penultimate day of the 21st North Bengal Book Fair, Chatterjee, who has come all the way from Calcutta to participate in the book fair, is now regretting his decision to put up a stall here. “Customers who are interested but do not have the money to buy books are the majority. People with money to spend have preferred to enjoy Siliguri Utsav,” he said.

“The annual book fair in Calcutta is like a festival. We did not expect the Siliguri book fair to be as large as Calcutta’s, but at least, in its own capacity, we had expected people to come. We had not expected Siliguri to be so indifferent to a book-fair,” he said. “We had contacted schools and colleges and announced heavy discounts on books but even that was not enough to bring them here.”

Monotosh Basu, president of the organising committee, held the utsav responsible for the poor turnout at the fair. “Only 32,000 people had visited the fair till yesterday. The footfall is unexpectedly low this year. I guess it is because of the Siliguri Utsav.”

An organiser said “several thousand people” had come last night to watch Mamata Shankar perform at the Siliguri Utsav.

Police had cordoned off the road to Bagha Jatin Park, the venue for the utsav, to ensure that things did not go out of hand.

With Chandrabindu, a Calcutta-based band, set to perform at the utsav tonight, people were streaming in since late afternoon to get a ringside view of the action.

Asis Mukherjee of Orient Longman, a stall which most of the people at the fair visited, said there was a new trend emerging among the buyers. “Non-fiction literature was the top draw. People from all walks of life have shown a keen interest in non-fiction and books on popular science.”

Other stalls, however, are trying to put the book-fair experience behind them. “There are no customers here. People arrive only in the evening when cultural programmes and talk shows are held and telecast live by a local channel,” said Upendra Nath Mondol of Nirmal Book Agency.

Others said the fair’s failure was because of “bad timing” coupled with the utsav effect.

“The timing was off. The fair began last Saturday and will end tomorrow. To be honest, the book fair at Malda was far better than this one,” Soumya Dutta of Basak Book Store said.