Karachi: The 16th Karachi International Book Fair has started after a gap of one year as in 2020 the event could not be held due to COVID-19 lockdown restrictions.
A large number of Karachiites, especially school and college students, thronged the Karachi’s Expo Centre to visit the book fair and showed their keen interest in books.
The book fair has 330 stalls with books both from local and international publications, including Iran, India, Turkey, Singapore, China, Malaysia, the United Kingdom, the United States, and the United Arab Emirates. The books are available in the languages of Urdu, English, Sindhi, Arabic, Persian, Punjabi, and Gujarati.
Sindh Education and Culture Minister, Syed Sardar Ali Shah, who launched the fair, said that smart cellular phones and tablet computers couldn’t replace the books as the book reading habit was still alive among the citizens.
He appealed to the federal government to withdraw tax on paper to promote the publishing industry and book reading practice in the country.
He said that a resolution to this effect would also be tabled in the Sindh Assembly to support the book publishers if in case the federal government didn’t withdraw the tax.
He said the government’s departments of Education and Culture would fully support organising such book exhibitions in other cities of the province including Hyderabad, Sukkur, and Larkana.
Former Sindh Education Minister, Pir Mazhar-ul-Haq, said that Karachi being the business hub of the country should have its own paper industry like Lahore to support the publishers.
He said the government after the 18th Constitutional Amendment was empowered to take up this issue in the provincial cabinet to attract the relevant industrialists to set up the paper industry in Karachi.
Chairman of Pakistan Publishers and Book Booksellers’ Association, Aziz Khalid, said that availability of quality paper at cheap rates was a must for publishing good books in the country.
