With the digital transformation, book lovers are ever more interested in purchasing e-books. To meet this demand, an e-book stall has been set up at this year’s Amar Ekushey Book Fair.
This reporter visited stall 62-63 and saw a small crowd of university students huddled in front of it. A woman, one of the representatives of Boighor EB Solutions, was explaining an app to the assembled crowd, describing how it provides access to about a thousand free books on mobile devices.
Alo Mehtaz Tumpa, brand promoter of the Boighor app, told the Dhaka Tribune that every day, hundreds of book lovers gather at their stall to learn about the app and its use. “Young book lovers – plus students from schools, colleges and universities – are interested.”
“Basically, we add new books to our app every week. It costs Tk10-20 for premier-category books, which is a very small amount to spend on a book; otherwise there are about a thousand free e-books for readers. They just need to have a telecom connection on their device or Bkash account with internet access,” said Alo Mehtaz Tumpa.
Boighor can be accessed by Robi, Banglalink, Airtel and Bkash users, and an internet connection is a must. The names of the apps for their respective telecoms are: Banglalink Boighor, Robi Boighor, Airtel My Pocket Book and for BKash users just Boighor.
Emon Molla, a university student from Comilla, immediately tried to download the app after he was briefed by the Boighor brand promoter. “I am looking forward to downloading the app, as it is easy. I do not need to carry a hard copy with me, it is just on my handset, which will give me access to a thousand free e-books.”
“Plus, the premier charge is very low. For students, I think it is timely with this generation’s lifestyle.”
Available books have been categorized into five groups: story (golpo), novel (uponyash), child novel (shishu shahityo), poem (kobita), and other. The latter includes book about politics, history, and more topics.
On the eleventh day of the book fair, the covers of 128 new books were unveiled, raising the total to 1,531 new books available at the event.