Govt urged to buy good books for public libraries

Many publishers who attended the ongoing Erode Book Festival, arranged by Makkal Sindhanai Peravai at Erode CN College, appealed to the government to buy good books for public libraries without delay. 
They said that during the corona period and lock down, the  books were not 
bought for public libraries and after the DMK rule came to power also, books were not yet procured. 

During the tenure of CMs MGR, Karunanidhi and Jayalalithaa, the books were procured regularly. But, it was said that the books of writers who influenced the government were bought much though a committee was constituted to select books. As the new books were not procured by the government, many publishers were suffering much. 

The government was collecting the library cess along with property tax regularly. But the cess fund was not used for buying books every year. Instead, it announced construction of Kalaignar memorial library at a cost of Rs 114 crore at Madurai. All could not buy books due to high cost. So, their only option is to visit public libraries in their areas to read books including books to prepare for competitive exams. As the government didn't buy good books for libraries, the number of visitors to it also came down much.   Due to corona and lack of sales for over 2 years, over 300 publishers out of 1500 in TN quit the field due to loss caused by paying rent for shops and book storage godowns. 

Though the royalty to writers was at the same level of 10 percent of sale price, and many writers books were nationalised, many publishers reduced the printing of number of books from 1000 to 300 due to lack of sales and high production cost. 

Now, due to steep rise in the cost of raw materials for printing books including paper, ink, rise in GST, labour cost etc, the cost of books rose by 40 to 50 percent. The price would rise further due to rise in power tariff. 
So, the middle and lower middle class people stop buying books or spending low amount for buying books. The upper middle class and affluents were buying books as usual in the book fair.