Cantering along the stretch between Putalisadak and Bagbazar one is struck by the number of bookshops that flank the busy street on both the sides. Near the Bagbazar bus park, street vendors can be seen peddling cheap and unauthorised versions of famous Nepali and English titles, the same book available in a range of prices and paper qualities. Currently, the country has no book policy. This vacuum has resulted in huge losses for major publication houses like Sajha Prakashan which loses around Rs 10 million annually owing to copyright violations. For their part, the writers, who get their cut from publication houses, are doubly cheated, both in terms of lost royalties and lack of access to the desired readers.

The situation is so bad that even Tribhuvan University, the most respected educational institution in Nepal, stands accused of copyright infringements in its prescription of textbooks. Even though the Copyright Act, 2002 was promulgated to protect intellectual properties of authors in the lead up to Nepal’s entry into the World Trade Organisation, lax implementation has rendered the law toothless. Easy availability of cheap and pirated books in every nook and cranny of the capital is indicative of the fact that noble intention without the will to back it up does little good.