Boi mela food stalls ‘booked’, publishers struggle to survive

KOLKATA: ‘Boi, boi, boi…” goes the chorus of the ongoing 39th Kolkata Book Fair’s theme song composed and sung by Usha Uthup. It should, instead, have been ‘khai, khai, khai…’ That’s because the food stalls at this book fair do much better business than an overwhelming majority of the book stalls. A wide variety of foods, ranging from biryani, pulao, chola batura and chowmein to lyangcha, payesh, patisapta and ice cream, are being sold from the 25-odd food stalls at the fair. The food court in the 62,700 sq ft Milan Mela grounds is, for all purposes, the hub of the 12-day ‘Boi Mela’ that ends on Sunday. Last year’s book fair, according to the Publishers & Booksellers Guild that organizes the fair, drew 1.8 million visitors. Guild general secretary Tridip Kumar Chatterjee said that the turnover at last year’s fair was Rs 20 crore. That means that the average purchase of books per visitor was a measly Rs 111. Last year, the number of stalls stood at 568. Thus, the average turnover of a book stall was Rs 3.52 lakh, or a very modest Rs 29,342 per day. In reality, about 15% of the book stalls cornered 80% of the sales; most of the stalls, thus, did little business.This year, 584 book stalls have been put up, apart from the foreign ones. Guild officials told TOI that this year’s sales figures would be more or less as last year’s. The food stalls are, however, doing roaring business. The ‘Lazeez’ stall, for instance, has been doing business of nearly Rs 1 lakh everyday, said Md Farid, a manager at the stall. ‘Ali Baba’ is doing even better with average daily sales of Rs 1.4 lakh. The ‘Honey da Dhaba’ stall is struggling to cope up with the rush of customers and is posting average daily sales of more than Rs 1 lakh.Even the smaller food kiosks are doing very good business. Babulal Mishra, owner of ‘Banarasi Paan’ stall, said his average daily turnover is Rs 30,000. ‘Pithe bilashi’ stall manager Raktim Ghosh said he’s selling about Rs 25,000 worth of ‘pithas’. Even a kiosk selling 28 varieties of pickles is posting average daily sales of Rs 20,000. Compare that to, for instance, Bulbul Prokashani that has done business worth only about Rs 10,000 from January 28 till late Friday afternoon. Or Joydurga Library that wears a forlorn look and whose sales figures till now don’t notch up to five digits. Eighty percent of the book stalls are facing a similar plight and will barely be able to recoup the rental charge of about Rs 6100 per square feet they paid to the Guild. Even a small 5 meter x 5 meter book stall would have had to pay Rs 1,52,500 as rent.That’s some food for thought!