The Hindu Business Line : ‘Books on Wheels’ reaches out to Maharashtra’s masses

Mr Pankaj Kurulkar, a 45-year old electronics engineer and an author, is setting the hearts of booklovers thumping. He has begun a service, ‘Granthayan — Books on Wheels’. This is the first such project in the country.

To begin with, ten mobile vans have been deployed at various points in the State, and will cover places such as Mumbai, Pune, Nashik, Shirdi, Satara, Sangli, Karad, Chiplun, Khed, Miraj, Isalmpur, Tasgaon and Shrirampur among others.

“Books are not reaching the masses as expected due to a poor distribution network. There are pizza outlets at every corner in Pune but hardly any book stores in the city which is the epicentre of culture in Maharashtra,” he says.

Pointing to statistics, Mr Kurulkar says, “Pune has the maximum number of colleges compared to other Indian cities, i.e., nearly 100. Yet, look at the number of bookstores… it’s hardly fulfilling the needs of students.”

Filling the gap

He wanted to fill this gap between demand and supply. “I hit upon the idea of launching a Books-on-Wheels project. The project offers us tremendous advantage over conventional brick-and-mortar stores because it allows us to travel. With English and Marathi books, over 6,000 titles and 20,000 books in each van, we will reach readers who have never seen a bookstore in their lives,” he says.

GPS-fitted

Every mobile or Granthayan store has been fitted with a global positioning system and a satellite- linked point-of-sale software that will help Granthayan’s 65-strong staff keep track of the position of the mobile bookstores while keeping a tab on sales made from any of the bookstores. He also has a call centre where book lovers can dial a toll-free number for free doorstep delivery.

Mr Kurulkar noted that these vans would reach the people’s doorsteps to deliver books free of cost in Maharashtra and within a couple of years, the number of vans would be increased to over 100 covering Maharashtra and other States.

Once this expansion is completed, it would expand to cover 22 Indian languages. He said 70 per cent of his stock would comprise Marathi books, and the remaining would be books in English. Granthayan has over nine lakh titles under various subjects.

Other plans include staging poetry reading sessions, author reading sessions, plays and other cultural events to give its customers an experience beyond the cover of the book.

He added that it was also looking at bringing regional works to the mainstream and would be picking up post-graduate students in different languages to help with the translation.