ISLAMABAD, Nov 4: Good reading habits and economic well-being of nations are inter-linked, said Education Minister Lt-Gen (retired) Javed Ashraf Qazi while speaking at the launch of membership drive of the National Book Foundation's Readers Club here on Thursday.

The minister postulated some kind of new hypothesis about book reading habits: Citizens of rich countries read far more books than the developing country's.

He said economic activity was directly proportional to the number of books read and published each year in rich countries in comparison with less developed countries.

The government was keen to promote reading habits among citizens through the Readers Club and for this purpose subsidized prices of books to a certain extent.

"We do not have cast aside good reading habits nor Pakistani authors have produced any good books on economics and science subjects." To make up for the loss Minister Qazi asked NBF Managing Director Ahmad Faraz to set up a writers' resource centre, which should be fully equipped with specialized book holding on all kinds of literature pertaining to economic and science subjects, the minister said.

Pakistani authors desirous of writing good books on these subjects could use the centre to research their material. In tune with his ideas about reading of good purposeful books the education must also be demand-driven and serve the needs of the society, maintained the minister.

Earlier in his address of welcome noted poet Ahmad Faraz said that it was unfortunate that Muslims were known as the people of book and yet they had distanced themselves from books and reading.

The book would never yield its place to any new innovation, be it radio or television or films. There will always be a place for books whatever the competing civilization in an era.

Poet Faraz said the Readers Club scheme was started in 1984 in three cities. Today the scheme has been extended to 47 cities and the club's membership has reached 15,000. The members will be entitled 55 per cent discount on books on all NBF outlets. Under the scheme 200,000 people have benefited so far.

Faraz stressed the need for establishing mobile book centres so that the maximum population of the country, that lives in rural areas could benefit from the scheme.

The minister became the first member of the Readers Club for 2004-5.

APP/PPI adds: The education minister said the government would promote the technical education throughout the country in order to reduce the skill gap among the young population and to alleviate poverty and reduce unemployment.

The minister said he had been successful in securing the political will at the highest level regarding the establishment of polytechnic institutes throughout the country.

He maintained that much had been talked and done about the formal education, which he seems to be purposeless, thus taking the future generation to nowhere.

The minister termed the current education system as a little meaningful for those who were fortunate enough to secure seats in the professional colleges and leaving behind thousands of the students who could not take up the desired courses because of the high merit and few seats. The minister said he would soon introduce a counselling system for the parents and the students who would guide them in choosing and pursuing a certain course for their studies after the middle level.

"Today's job market requires job-oriented education, which would soon be started," he added.

He dismissed the impression that electronic media and information technology were responsible for the lack of reading culture in the country, and added that information provided to them was obtained from the books at the first hand. He urged the National Book Foundation to produce more books on science technology and English literature and added that the NBF scheme would soon be extended to the rural areas once its benefits were proven.

The minister also directed the NBF to establish resource centres for the authors, teachers, students and the general public, where in the first phase the books on science and economic, wherever published throughout the world should be made available for the benefit of the local readership.

NBF launches readers club scheme every year. The membership is granted for one year, which automatically terminates. The members have to re-register themselves again which puts an extra burden on their pocket. The government must start schemes through which the people can benefit for longer time, said a lady who attended the ceremony.