Books were previously the source of knowledge, information and enjoyment but now people need books only to pass exams, said Ismail Baloch, former general secretary of New Urdu Bazaar Welfare Association, here on Wednesday He said that previously book selling was considered a respectable and profitable profession but now the trend is changing and it is facing multiple problems.
Baloch said that private publishers like Oxford, Paramount, Cambridge, Gaba etc have increased the prices of their books to such an extent that a common man who has more than one kid cannot afford to buy new books for his children. Parents prefer to buy second-hand books or the pirated version of the books, he added. He said that big publishers like Oxford are earning huge profits as they change their text material yearly as a marketing gimmick, forcing the parents to buy the new addition.
Parents on the other hand complain that they can't afford to buy new books for all of their children every year. They alleged that the publishers are minting money through their marketing tricks. Baloch said that the yearly minor changes in the textbooks were affecting the book selling business as the private publishers did pick up the previous versions of books from the sellers.
One more problem is that if a child buys a book from a seller in the beginning of the session and founds a page missing or any other defect in the book in the middle or end of the session, he demands exchange of the book which a seller is bound to change but the publishers neither change the defected book nor do they accept the responsibility of it, he said.
Baloch said that not only the publishers but also the private schools have started printing their own syllabi, which has also affected the sellers' business. He suggested that the government should make a forum for sellers and publishers where they can sit together and set guidelines for the business.