To Meet Demand, Gita Press Uploads Ramcharitmanas On Its Site

GORAKHPUR, (IANS) – The Gita Press in Uttar Pradesh’s Gorakhpur which publishes religious texts, has decided to upload Ramcharitmanas on its website www.gitapres.org in 10 languages.

Trustee of Gita Press, Devi Dayal Agarwal, said that Ramcharitmanas would be available on the website in Oriya, Telugu, Marathi, Gujarati, Kannada, English, Bengali, Hindi, Assamese, and Nepali languages.

The server of the Press has been upgraded so that 1 lakh people can read or download the text at a time.

The demand for religious books like Ramcharitmanas, Hanuman Chalisa and Sundar Kand has surged to the extent that the availability of these revered scriptures has become a challenge, as the stocks have depleted.

For the first time since its establishment, the Gita Press is struggling hard to cope with the increasing demand.

Gita Press officials said that demand for Ramcharitmanas and Hanuman Chalisa started rising in October. In the past three months, the Press had published and sold 3.27 lakh copies of Ramcharitmanas and currently, it was running out of stock.

Similarly, 13.50 lakh copies of Hanuman Chalisa were printed and were now out of stock.

Lalmani Tiwari, manager of Gita Press, said that demand for pocket-size Ramcharitmanas from Rajasthan, Bihar, and other states had crossed the 1.59 lakh mark. Currently, they were facing difficulty in coping with the demand, so they decided to upload it on the website.

Tiwari confirmed that the Press was able to meet only 75 percent of the demand. He said that the demand for Sundar Kand had also increased significantly, and they had published and sold 4.75 crore copies and by the end of December, it went out of stock.

Tiwari said that previously they used to publish a maximum of 75,000 copies of Ramcharitmanas in a month and currently, despite publishing 1 lakh copies a month they were not able to meet the demand.

An order of 50,000 copies had been received from Jaipur and a similar number from Bharatpur.

Regional offices were also receiving extra orders for Ramcharitmanas and Ayodhya Darshan but their publication in a short span of time was not possible, he added.

Trustee Devi Dayal Agarwal said that free text on the website was a ‘prasad’ of Ram Utsav for devotees.

Apart from Ramcharitmanas, Ayodhya Darshan (new edition) and Ayodhya Mahatmya will also be uploaded.

Gita Press has also decided to establish its outlet in the Ram temple complex.

Meanwhile, in Kanpur, Gita Press outlets have run out of stock of Ramcharitmanas and Hanuman Chalisa.

Since the date of consecration was announced, the demand had soared, he said, adding that he had sold more than 30,000 copies in two months in Kanpur and nearby areas.

“All were purchased within minutes,” he said.