NEW DELHI, Feb 10:
The currency of countries like Pakistan and Bangladesh may have much less value but it does not matter for book sellers at the ongoing World Book Fair who are earning a fast buck by selling at Indian rates.
The sellers have marked books at domestic MRP value rather than converting it into Indian rupee rate which works out to be much cheaper in reality.
The National Book Trust, which is organising the Fair has however, said there is no rule to stop such a practice of foreign publishers and distributors from doing so.
“Some foreign publication stalls are selling books on the rates applicable for their country,” alleged P M Bhat, a researcher from Mysore, in an e-complaint to the HRD Ministry.
Exhibitors from Pakistan like Children Publication Pakistan, Oxford University Press, Pakistan, Manshurat; Pages (Publisher and Distributor), and Karachi-based Royal Book Company, have marked prices on stocks in Rs, which is Pakistani Rupee PKR and not Indian Rupee INR, he said.
After a 10 per cent discount offered by Fair organisers to stall owners, the net rate of any book of works out to be (0.9 x 0.55) 0.495 Indian Rupee of every 1 Pakistan Rupee value, which means that any PKR denominated book must be available for purchase at about 50 per cent of the marked price, when paid in Indian Rupee.
M A Sikandar, Chairman, National Book Trust told PTI, “We are here to promote only good reading habits and that is what is our main goal. If people have such complaint they should go to the departments concerned like Sales Tax and Service Tax. We are just a literary body.”
Farida M Naik, Joint Director, NBT, said, “As of now have not received any such complaints at the Fair. The NBT has only directed the publishers and the distributors to sell the books at a minimum discount of 10 per cent. If the sellers are selling it at a higher price, then they have to meet their costs of transportation, customs, payment for stalls at the Fair, so on and so forth.”
The 7-day long event, which is being organised by National Book Trust, has put on show nearly 1,100 Indian and foreign publishers from countries such as Pakistan, Iran, Nepal, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, USA, UK, South Korea, Singapore, Sri Lanka etc.
Many foreign publishers also refuted the claims and said
they were selling the books on reasonable rates.
“First there are more charges, we are charged Rs 1 lakh rupees for stall, whereas at every other book fair the rate does not exceed Rs 50 to 55 thousand for the stall,” said A M Faheem, owner of Al-Hasanat Books, Indian distributor of Pakistan based-publisher of Children’s Publication.
Faisal Faheem, representative of the Children’s Publication, further said that cost of transportation, customs and other charges incurred on these these books add up to prices on the books in the Indian currency.
“Most of our books have MRP in dollars and pounds. While we calculate in pounds and dollars, then accordingly convert them in Indian currency,” he said adding that the stall gives discount of 20 to 25 percent on all books.
Meanwhile, publishers from Nepal and Sri Lanka were also seen to be selling books for the amount printed on them in their currency but charging customers in Indian rupees.
National Booksellers and Publishers Association of Nepal (NBPAN) representatives were also seen selling their books on Nepalese currency.
“Some books have MRP in dollars and Nepalese rupee too. We sell it according to the Dollar MRP, while as those books which don’t have MRP in dollars, are sold on Nepalese MRP,” said Keshav Khatrey, Representative of all book Publishers from Nepal in World Book Fair.
Bangladeshi stall owner were also selling their books in Takka MRP without converting it to Indian Rupees. When contacted Maharukh Mohiuddin, Director University Press Ltd. Dhaka, an official from stall, refused to comment on the issue.
At the Sri Lanka stall, the official representative was missing but the salesperson present at the stall informed PTI that a similar practice was being followed for the English books being sold at the stall.
However, Iranian, UAE, French and German origin stalls are complying with international practice of proper exchange conversion. (PTI)
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