Activities

1. Publishing

NBT-India publishes a wide variety of reasonably priced quality books ranging from works of fiction to books on medical sciences and cutting edge technology for all segments of the society and for all age groups, including a wide variety of illustrated books for children as well as books published for the neo-literates and visually impaired.

NBT-India publishes books in all major Indian languages, which includes Asamiya, Bangla, Bodo, English, Gujarati, Hindi, Kannada, Kashmiri, Malayalam, Manipuri, Maithili, Marathi, Nepali, Odia, Punjabi, Sanskrit, Sindhi, Tamil, Telugu and Urdu. In addition to this, NBT-India has also published books in Ao Naga, Asuri, Bhojpuri, Bhili, Bhatri, Biho, Birajia, Bhumij, Garo, Gondi, Ho, Halbi, Himachali, Khadia, Khasi, Kokborok, Konkani, Kuduk, Lepcha, Bhutia, Malto, Mising, Mundari, Lim-boo, Mizo, Newari, Magahi, Tibetan, Santali, and Sanskrit among others.

2. Braille Books

As part of its initiatives to make books easily accessible to the readers with special needs across India, NBT-India in collaboration with All India Confederation of the Blind (AICB) jointly publishes books in Braille for visually impaired readers. The books are not only being brought out in Hindi and English, but also in other Indian languages like Gujarati, Kannada, Malayalam, Marathi and Tamil. These books have been taken from various series under which NBT-India publishes books like India-The Land and the People, Aadan Pradan, Young India Library, Popular Science, Popular Social Science, Classics, Creative Learning series, National Biography, Asian Cultural Centre for UNESCO, Nehru Bal Pustakalaya among others. So far, over 360 Braille books have been published.

3. E-books

On the digital format, NBT-India has made available many of its popular titles across e-platforms. Around 120 titles have been published in Bangla, English, Hindi, Tamil and Telugu languages.

4. Book Promotion Activities

NBT-India regularly organises Book Fairs/Exhibitions throughout the country. NBT-India also hosts the prestigious annual New Delhi World Book Fair. NBT-India has so far organised 29 New Delhi World Book Fairs and 295 Domestic Book Fairs.

5. Promotion of Indian Books Abroad

As the nodal agency for promotion of books in India and abroad, NBT-India participates in various international book fairs and puts up exhibitions to display select titles brought out by various Indian publishers. Since 1970, NBT-India has participated in various international book fairs including Frankfurt, Bologna, Jerusalem, Seoul, Sharjah, Beijing, Colombo, Tokyo, Bangkok, Minsk, Kuala Lumpur, Singapore, Warsaw, Nigeria, Kathmandu, Manila, London, Karachi, Dhaka and Lahore. India's Guest of Honour Presentations at Frankfurt (2006), Moscow (2009), Beijing (2010), Seoul (2013) and Paris (2022) were organized by NBT-India and during which coordinated many literary programmes, including seminars, discussions, reading sessions, and authors' presentations. In addition, a special exhibit of books from India was also put up.

6. Samagra Shiksha Abhiyan

The Samagra Shiksha Abhiyan is a flagship programme of the Government of India, for the promotion of reading habit among school children through the libraries of their respective schools. Under the programme, books in many languages have been published for the school children by NBT-India. The books are selected by a panel of experts of the respective state governments for school children in their states.

7. National Centre for Children’s Literature

NBT-India also has a National Centre for Children’s Literature (NCCL), which is the nodal agency to monitor, coordinate, plan and aid the publication of children’s literature in various Indian languages. The NCCL has developed a library-cum-documentation centre of children’s literature. It organises workshops, seminars and exhibitions to develop the children’s literature in the country. With a view to promote and develop the reading habit of the children at the school level, NCCL encourages set-ting up of Readers’ Clubs at the schools throughout the country and also conducts surveys and takes up research work relating to children’s literature. So far, over 1.29 lakh Readers Clubs have been set up across the country. NCCL also organises meet-the-author programmes, online story-telling sessions, webinars, Readers Club Orientation programmes and other children’s activities in various parts of the country.

8. Book Publishing Courses

NBT-India organises short-term Training Courses in Book Publishing in various parts of the country with the objective to create a talent pool of trained professionals for the publishing industry. While a four-week Training Course in Book Publishing at Delhi has become an annual feature, NBT-India also conducts short-term training courses of one-to-two week durations in other parts of the country. In addition, NBT-India has collaborated with select universities like Calcutta University and Ambedkar University, Delhi to offer one year post-graduate diploma in publishing studies to help students who wish to pursue book publishing as a career.

9. Mobile Exhibitions

NBT-India operates an innovative scheme of Pustak Parikramas and exhibition of books through mobile vans across the country to make books accessible to the public at large in remote, rural and difficult areas. So far NBT-India has organised more than 15,000 Mobile Exhibitions throughout the country including Northeastern states and land border districts.

10. Book Promotional Activities by the NBT-India Regional Offices and Book Promotion Centres

Besides the Northern Regional Office at its headquarters, NBT-India also has three Regional Offices at Bengaluru, Mumbai and Kolkata as well as Book Promotional Centres at Agartala, Bhopal, Chennai, Cuttack, Dehradun, Guwahati, Hyderabad, Kochi, Lucknow, and Patna. These offices are primarily responsible for the marketing and sales of NBT-India publications. The regional offices also participate in various book fairs organised both by NBT-India and other agencies throughout the country. They also organise book exhibitions at various places in their respective regions.

11. Grant-in-Aid Programme

The Ministry of Education had entrusted the scheme of Financial Assistance to Voluntary/Private organisations for organising Seminars/Training Courses/Workshops/Annual Conventions/Book Fairs related to the Book Promotional Activities to NBT-India. Grants are released to the organisations by NBT-India to meet 75% of the approved expenditure of such Book Fairs, Seminars, etc. Besides, NBT-India also provides assistance to authors and publishers for the publication of reasonably priced university level text and reference books and for books on Medical Science under its Subsidy Scheme.

For more details, click here: www.nbtindia.org.in