boi-para<\/em>, publishers have suffered immensely. Susmita Basu Singh of Rritobak, a publisher working for about two years, said she is broke.<\/p>\n\u201cI started crying when I entered my office the day after the cyclone. The books are gone, the furniture\u2019s plywood is damaged. The computer, which had about 70-80 edited manuscripts, is dead, and they [the manuscripts] need to re-edited, re-proofed,\u201d she said, her voice choked. Being a new publisher, she was not yet covered by insurance, a problem faced by many.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere are so many workers, particularly the office assistants, who are not skilled in any particular way, and they are out of work,\u201d she said. Other publishers said the last Kolkata Book Fair, disrupted by rain and storm, did not deliver its usual return, accentuating the crisis.<\/p>\n
Bengal\u2019s book trade, with an annual turnover of about \u20b91,000 crore may not be huge by industry standards but it is labour intensive. It employs not less than 5 lakh people, from publishers to porters, according to an estimate of the Publishers and Booksellers Guild. Many associated with the ancillary work are in deep trouble.<\/p>\n
\u2018Let\u2019s rebuild\u2019<\/h2>\n
\u201cAt least half a dozen motors of my offset machine are dead and it requires \u20b98,000-\u20b910,000 to repair each of them,\u201d said Debasish Auddy, owner of a printing press, Sarat Impressions. Assessing the scale of damage, the Guild developed a catchline \u2014 \u2018Let\u2019s rebuild College Street Boi Para together\u2019 \u2014 and donated a seed fund of \u20b95 lakh, seeking donations after opening a bank account.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere are about 2,000 publishers and booksellers in College Street. The Guild is inviting applications from June 3 till June 30 from publishers, with an estimate of their losses to extend support,\u201d said the Guild\u2019s president, Tridib Chatterjee. The support is only for the publishers located in College Street, where the damage is to the tune of \u20b95 crore, he said. Other estimates pegged the overall damage in the range of \u20b915 crore-\u20b920 crore.<\/p>\n
Crowdfunding<\/h2>\n
Meanwhile, almost single-handedly, one person had raised about \u20b915 lakh till Friday afternoon, using a crowd-funding platform. Indrani Mitra Roy, owner of 87-year-old publishing house Mitra and Ghosh, was supported by mainly booklovers from across the world. A timely tweet from politician Shashi Tharoor helped her, she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cKolkata\u2019s College Street (Boi Para) is as legendary as the smell of ideas wafting out of Coffee House, but Cyclone Amphan ravaged it, leaving battered books, flooded stores and devastated booksellers already reeling from the COVID-19 lockdown. Let\u2019s help them,\u201d the precise tweet from Mr. Tharoor, who spent years in Kolkata, noted. He provided the platform\u2019s link too.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have managed to provide support of \u20b910,000 each to 50 small publishers and we are processing 120 more applications and it was done in an absolutely transparent manner, providing details on social media,\u201d Ms. Roy said. The boi-para<\/em>, however, is looking forward to support from both the State and Central governments to revive Bengal\u2019s most prestigious business of books.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n
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