Shri Baldev Bhai Sharma took over as NBT chairman in March 2015. Since then he has taken many steps to bring the NBT closer to readers in remote areas through various schemes and activities. Senior Correspondent of Organiser Pramod Kumar spoke to him during the World Book Fair in New Delhi to know the initiatives taken as part of 60 years celebration. Excerpts:
How do you look at the six decades journey of NBT?
The journey is full of the efforts to take the treasurer of knowledge to the people. In order to boost it, set new standards and to promote reading habits we have come out with many innovative schemes.
What are those schemes?
Apart from starting publication of books in Sanskrit, we organised National Sanskrit Book Fair in Varanasi. In order to preserve and promote the regional dialects and languages, we have sincerely
promoted publication of books in various such languages. Another innovative scheme is One Book for Every Hand. Under this scheme, wealthy people make donations and we supply books to the place they wish. Books worth Rs four lakh have been supplied under this scheme within a few months. We are also going to
provide books to the rural readers through Panchayats. A pilot project is going to begin from Uttarakhand.
But the youth in cities prefer to read books in digital form. What is for them?
We are sincerely promoting e-books for them. We have brought out over 150 e-books.
You have been talking about promoting women writers. What has been achieved in this life so far?
We have started two major schemes not only for female
writers but also for the budding male writers. Both are for the young writers below the age of 40 years. We have released three books of young women writers in this Book Fair. I appeal to the young writers through Organiser to come forward and draw benefit of these schemes of the NBT.
What about the books
related to children?
It is very important segment of our readership. Children need knowledge for development of their personality, which cannot be ensured through toys and cartoon shows on television. We publish books with attractive illustrations so that the children could read them with interest and imbibe
values. Our objective is to transfer traditions to the readers in all available modern ways.
