Kolkata Book Fair - Venue

Venue

From 2009, the fair is being held in its new location at "Milan Mela" near Science City on E.M.Bypass. The initial apprehension about reduced attendance at the new site has been proven wrong. Millions had visited the book fair in 2009.

The fair used to be held on the Maidan, Kolkata's large urban park. It was being held at the Park Street end of the Maidan, due to a better road and rail network, having moved there from the other end of Maidan in 1991.

During the 1980s and early 1990s, Kolkata played host to two annual book fairs, one by the Kolkata Publishers' and Booksellers' Guild, and one by the Government of West Bengal - the Grontho Mela ('Grontho' is archaic Bengali word for book). 'Grontho Mela' used to be held in late December and continued until early January, and was the showcase for books published by Government-run publishing houses. While this was initially a rival commercial venture, the unprecedented growth of the 'Kolkata Book Fair' caused the Government of West Bengal to merge the two book fairs in 1992.

Conservation problems for the Victoria Memorial include high dust pollution, which is often accentuated by public fairs on the Maidan. The Kolkata High Court's 2004 decision to move all public fairs to the Eastern Metropolitan Bypass has not been greeted with enthusiasm by fair organizers due to the present location being in the heart of Kolkata, and being very well serviced by public transport. The book fair and a few other fairs, however, were granted special permission by the Kolkata High Court to continue holding the fair on the Maidan in 2005 and 2006. However, the choice of Maidan as the annual venue for the book fair is no longer certain.

A demand for a permanent round-the-year indoor space for the fair, typically comprising only some of the stalls, had been given by the fair authorities to the Government of West Bengal. The former Chief Minister of West Bengal, Mr. Buddhadeb Bhattacharya, in a statement in 2005, had agreed to this request but no progress has been made on this front.

However, many Kolkatans feel that the fair will lose its ambience if it is held indoors or away from the Maidan. After a yearlong uncertainty, the world's largest non-trade book fair, has settled for Park Circus Maidan to host the literary carnival in 2008.

However, organisers of Asia's biggest book fair are still apprehensive, keeping in mind the disgrace in January 2007 when the Kolkata High Court did not allow them to host the fair at the Maidan, a vast stretch of green in the heart of the city, on environmental ground. The Publishers and Booksellers Guild had to shift the most-awaited cultural event to Salt Lake in 2007 after the city's green brigade won a legal battle to block the fair at the Maidan.