Lalitpur, October 27

The century old publishing house Sajha Prakashan said it plans to develop itself as a ‘model’ publishing house in South Asia.

Chairperson and General Manager of Sajha Prakashan Dolindra Prasad Sharma said, “If we get support from the government and other concerned organisations, we will soon establish this government-owned organisation as a model publishing house in the whole (South Asian) region.”

Mismanagement in the past had led Sajha Prakashan to a financial crisis so bad that it was on verge of collapse around two years ago. Until very recently, the Cooperative Development Bank was all set to auction off the central office of Sajha Prakashan located at Pulchowk, Lalitpur to recover loans.

However, Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal has directed the Ministry of Education to stop the process of auctioning of the publication house’s property and pledged to provide Rs 400 million in grant and loan within seven days to save the organisation.

“We want the government to provide us work along with financial support,” Sharma said, adding, “If the government does not fulfill its responsibilities towards its own organisations, we won’t be able to become self-reliant.”

He informed that the organisation still have books worth Rs 220 million stored in a warehouse while it has around 5.5 million expenditure each month.

Sajha Prakashan’s main source of income is publishing and distributing of school textbooks, literary books, and other printing works.

But after the promulgation of Education Act 1971, Sajha’s responsibility to print school textbooks was handed over to another state-owned organisation Janak Education Materials Centre and it was only given the responsibility to distribute books.

Last year, its responsibility to distribute school textbook was withdrawn.