The Hindu Business Line : Pratham Books unveils reading campaign for rural children

FAR from the vibrant visual merchandise displays featuring the Enid Blytons and J.K. Rowlings of the world in metropolitan retail India, pre-teens across many parts of the Indian hinterland could soon catch up with their dose of bedtime stories at unprecedented outlets - the local paan shops!

Spearheading this initiative is a Bangalore-based publication house called Pratham Books, which will soon extend its wide range of books to paan shops and newspaper stands across rural markets of the country as part of its distribution strategy.

"While distribution needs are better served through retail chains, they also increase the cost of sales. On the other hand, availability at paan shops and other centres central to rural distribution would enable us to reach our target audience - children in the low-income group," Mr Ashok Kamath, CEO, Pratham Books, told Business Line.

Pratham Books currently sells its titles though its 3,000 libraries in the country, with Mumbai hosting around 450 of them.

As a part of its ambitious `Read India' campaign, the publication house has also lined up an ambitious plan of setting 10,000 libraries in two years.

The campaign was launched in September 2003 and has engaged more than 3,00,000 children from 15 States in the past one year.

The movement was triggered after discovering that 50 per cent of school-going children in the fifth standard in Government schools could not read well, Mr Madhav Chavan, one of the founders of Pratham, said.

Pratham Resource Centre, a division of Pratham Education Initiative Network, also conducted a dipstick survey in association with Indian Institute of Rural Management and McKinsey on children between seven and 14 across the country.

The survey revealed that 10 per cent of the children in this age group were out of school while 24 per cent of the sample selected between seven and 10 could read the alphabet but not words.

To encourage such children, this non-profit enterprise has created an accelerated reading programme.

The first 50 `Read India' books based on this programme were released in English, Hindi, Marathi and Kannada on Monday. The books are priced between Rs 15 and Rs 20. The organisation plans to extend this series to Urdu and Tamil by end of this year.

This series is predominantly interesting reading for children and features short stories with animated pictures. The titles launched were We are all animals and the Tell me how series, besides a Marathi book called Wara (Wind).

Pratham Books is also scouting for companies to take part in this social cause. It recently bagged a deal worth Rs 6.5 lakh from the Dubai-based Round Table Club to release 19 books, Mr Kamath said.

More Stories on : Books | Children & Parenting | Maharashtra

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