National Book Trust is set to publish research work undertaken by Dr Ram Dayal Munda Tribal Welfare Research Institute and open a sales counter on its premises in Morabadi by the end of June.
The development is part of a memorandum of understanding between the publishing house and the tribal institute last month.
“Under the pact, it was agreed that the tribal institute will provide space to National Book Trust to open a sales counter on its premises. Every year, National Book Trust will publish research work undertaken by scholars of our institute. The publishing house will bear the entire cost and also market the books,” director the tribal institute Ranendra Kumar said.
The MoU also envisages translation and publication of children literature in tribal languages.
A two-day translation workshop was organised on the Morabadi campus by the tribal institute and National Book Trust this week.
“During the workshop, which ended on Thursday, as many as 35 books on children’s literature were translated in five tribal languages,” Pankaj Chaturvedi, editor of National Book Trust and the co-ordinator of the workshop, said, adding that the five tribal languages are Santhali, Mundari, Kharia, Ho and Nagpuri.
He said such workshops would be held on a regular basis.
“We will also cover other tribal languages of Jharkhand like Asuri, Birhori, Korba, Sabar, Mal Pahadia, Karmali and Chik Baraik. These translated books will be available on print by June. We have decided to distribute these books to government schools. The books will have lots of pictures. Children will love it,” Chaturvedi said.
He said the initiative would be beneficial for the tribal languages, the state, children and the book lovers.
“National Book Trust has a wide reach and it regularly organises book fairs. Therefore, our research books will get a wider audience. This is the first time that such as effort has been taken for the promotion of tribal languages. In fact, tribal children of Jharkhand have no literature available in their language,” he said.
