Legendary Geeta Press facing a different threat in Gujarat

Ahmedabad

    Gita Press, the legendy non-profit organisation which has published more than 58 crore copies of low priced popular Hindu religious texts of all kinds, and was in limelight recently for over a month long strike of its employees, is facing a threat of another kind in the form of the possible closure of all of its six railway station stalls of western railways including the remaining three in Gujarat.

    Two of the five such stalls in Gujarat including the oldest one in the state on the platform number two of Vadodara railway station has already been closed. The second closed stall was on Bharuch railway station while the one on platform number 2 and 3 of Ahmedabad railway station in Kalupur has also been served a verbal ultimatum by the railway recently citing the expiry of the rent agreement.

   Confirming it, the state representative of Geeta Press in Gujarat, Mr. Nand Kishore Drolia, today said that his organisation has already given a letter to the western railway General Manager on September 5 regarding reconsidering the decision to close the Vadodara and Bharuch book stalls. ‘But instead of getting a reply we have now received a verbal ultimatum in connection with our Ahmedabad stall too and expect such notices for the remaining ones as well. In our letter to the GM, which was written before the ultimatum for Ahmedabad but after the closer of Vadodara and Bharuch stalls, we had clearly said that we have paid the advance annual rent for all the stalls in the state including the one in Indore which falls under western railways. We are a philanthropic organisation selling low price books yet pay our rents well in advance every year. But it seems that the railway officials were themselves confused with regard to the issue,’ Mr. Drolia said.

    ‘The western railway vide its letter G84/0 GEETA PRESS dated  29-09-2008 had allotted us seven stalls. We opened the stalls in Vadodara, Bharuch, Ahmedabad, Rajkot, Jamnagar and Indore within a year. The one sanctioned for Dwarka could not see the light of day as it did not seem viable looking at the sparse number of visitors there. The agreement for rent was 2.5 percent of the sales royalty or at least Rs 5000 per stall per year which ever is more. In our letter to the GM we have also cited the railway board guideline reference number 2005/TG/3/639/1 which clearly says that the rent agreement for the book stalls which regularly paid the rents should be renewed.’ he said adding the Geeta Press stall followed the rent agreement religiously and never once violated it.

    Mr. Drolia said that it was not the volume of business but the visibility and awareness about the moral education texts and religious books through these stalls was important for them. ‘Even if we close down all of our over 35 railway stalls in the country it would hardly affect 2 to 3 percent of our business but the large number of passengers would be deprived of the knowledge about the good and cheaper books that we sell,’ he said.

    To a query he said that they have not approached the government on the issue and it was the responsibility of the ruling lot to see that the over nine decade old philanthropic campaign of Geeta Press was not hampered.

     Meanwhile the Geeta Press office in Bhatar road of Surat which is the main supplier of its books in Gujarat, said that the total sales volume in the state was around 30 to 35 lakhs per month (a large sum considering the very low prices of its books). The availability of some of the popular books like Shiv Purana, Sundarkand, Ramayana and Geeta has also been affected owing to the over month long strike owing to wages issues which began on August 8 and was called off on September 15. 
      
Founded in 1923, Gita Press is one of the largest publishers of Hindu religious texts.

   Meanwhile the railway sources confirmed that the verbal notice was served to the Ahmedabad stall recently and would most likely also be served to other stalls. ‘Any decision in this regard would be taken from the top level. That is all that we can say right now,’ they said.

   Notably, the main commercial book sellers on the railway stations across the country A H Wheeler and Company had also taken shelter of the court against such notices to them following an alleged dispute with the then railway minister Mr. Lalu Prasad. 

   ‘The Supreme Court has given an order of the status quo on their petition,’ Mr Drolia said adding his organisation falls under the category of philanthropic outfits like Ram Krishna Mission. ‘The railway must take in to account our yeoman’s services while taking any decision,’ he said.