LAHORE, Feb 28: The annual book fair began at Alhamra here on Saturday. Around 90,000 books have been displayed at 20 stalls set up at the 18th annual fair which will last till March 8. The participating publishers and booksellers belong to Lahore, Karachi and Islamabad who had recently attended the World Book Fair in New Delhi.

All books carry a 10 to 40 per cent discount and the organizers said this had been done to promote reading habits among the people.

Punjab Finance Minister Hasnain Bahadur Dareshak inaugurated the fair, organized by the Pakistan Publishers and Booksellers Association.

The minister promised to recommend to the federal government to provide the required facilities to the publishers and booksellers so that they could provide low-priced reading material to the people.

A few people visited the fair on the opening day, and office-bearers of the association hoped that the number would increase on Sunday and after Ashura.

Iqbal Cheema and other office-bearers of the association complained that reading habits in Pakistan could not be developed because of the lack of patronage by the government to the publishers and booksellers.

They said the National Book Council of Pakistan, which was founded during the regime of the late Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, was wrongly merged into the National Book Foundation three years ago. This foundation was a dead horse and the council must once again be revived, they said.

They said book business in India thrived because of the patronage by the National Book Trust of India which was promoting reading habits and authorship of books besides holding national and international book fairs.

They said local market was not viable for book business and the government must encourage local books export to other countries. The Export Promotion Bureau had never included any publisher or bookseller in the Pakistan trade delegations abroad, they complained.

They demanded reduction in the withholding tax on the import of books, industrial status for the book publishing sector, availability of exhibition halls or permission to use government buildings for the purpose without any charges and promotion of paper industry in he country so that people could afford to buy books.

"We have contributed Rs300,000 for organizing the fair, out of which Rs125,000 have been paid to Alhamra as rent," they said.

They said the association was again participating in a book fair in New Delhi in August this year and planning to organize the third Saarc book fair in Islamabad next year.

The theme of the fair in New Delhi would be Pakistan, they said.