Lalitpur, July 25

Sajha Prakashan, the century old publishing house, which was on the verge of collapse until recently, has geared up to regain its fame by publishing books on public demand.

After appointment of Dolindra Sharma as general manager and chairperson of Sajha Prakashan Management Committee 18 months ago, Sharma had launched the ‘Save Sajha’ Campaign. He begun the campaign by selling books stored in thwe godown and visited parliamentarians and intellectuals requesting them to buy books and distribute them to people of their home districts to make the public aware and also to make the organisation financially independent.

He also visited the leaders of major political parties seeking their commitment to save Sajha Prakashan. He urged then prime minister Sushil Koirala to provide some grants/loan to the publishing house to clear its debt and run the organisation in a new way. Sharma had also drawn the attention of UML leader KP Sharma Oli while he was PM on the need of financial support from the government, but in vain.

Thus, last week, the management committee decided to sell its property and downsize staffing within the organisation. Twenty-two officers were sacked from the organisation last week, while scores of staffers have tendered their resignation.

Sharma said, “When the management committee strongly came against employees who were not productive, other staffers receiving salary without doing work have also become alert and have started doing work sincerely.”

Earlier, the staffers used to remain absent during bandhs, but now almost all the staffers have started working from 10am which is a good sign of progress for the organisation, he said.

“We have started publishing books with new energy and set new targets,” he said, adding, “Within a month, we are going to publish books hundreds of copies of books with 30 titles to send them to the market on demand.”

Book publishing will help us become financially independent, he claimed.

Sajha Prakashan Management Committee has recently formed a five-member committee under the coordination of Jeevan Chandra Koirala to study the land to be sold.

“The committee will study the present status and valuation of the land which they were going to sell to relieve the organisation from debt and submit its report within 15 days,” he added.

He further said that he had met with Pushpa Kamal Dahal, chairperson, CPN Maoist Centre few days ago who had also expressed commitment to support Sajha Prakashan in the coming days.