Post News Network
Bhubaneswar, April 21: A booklover duo from the city has planned to reach out to thousands of prospective readers across the state through their ‘Read Orissa Tour-2015’, a mobile book fair on wheels that aims to travel through 30 districts of the state in 15 days.
Satabdi Mishra and Akshaya Routray, both in their 30s, embarked on their journey from Forest Park Tuesday to venture into remote, underdeveloped areas of the state in order to raise awareness on the benefits of reading. The duo is taking with them around 2,000 books on a range of topics in their mobile bookstore.
“Our main aim is to get the public to read. We want to promote a habit of reading which will be key to improving literacy. We are planning to target major hangout places in all 30 districts where we will organise our book fairs. It will take us at least 15 days to cover all districts through our mobile bookstore,” says Akshaya Routray, cofounder of Walking Book Fairs.
The mobile book fair tour Tuesday visited Cuttack and Puri after leaving the capital city early Tuesday morning. Several passers-by thronged the mobile book stall to leaf through some bestsellers and other interesting collections.
“We have around 2,000 books in our van. It mainly comprises books on fiction available in English and Oriya. We are planning to target all districts to make sure we bring to the people of Orissa interesting books which can help in inculcating a reading habit among them,” says Satabdi Mishra, co-founder.
Walking Book Fairs began in January 2014. Last year, the duo had toured some parts of the state like Koraput district in order to sell books but didn’t cover all districts. This time around, the booklovers have decided to tour all the districts to reach out to a wider audience. The van, a modified Maruti Suzuki Omni, has already covered around 6,000 km in the process of reaching out to people in the past one year.
Akshaya quit his job last year with a reputed bookstore to embark on this innovative journey while Satabdi, a mass communication graduate from Utkal University, is passionate about reaching out to booklovers through their mobile book van.
