Bangalore Book Festival - 2007, a 10-day exhibition-cum-sale of books, will begin at Palace Grounds on Friday.

Mr B S Raghuram, programme director of the Festival, told reporters on Thursday that 150 publishers of English language books, 48 Kannada publishers and 41 publishers of vernacular languages are taking part in the exhibition. In the last year the turn-out of public for the exhibition was 1.5 lakh and this time it is expected to go up by at least 30 per cent, he said.

The festival organising committee has joined hands with Kannada Development Authority to provide shops for Kannada publishers at subsidised price and free space for writer-publishers, Mr Raghuram said.

President of organising committee Balaram Sadhwani said, cultural programmes, philately exhibition, music programme by celebrities have been organised as part of the festival, he said.

The organising committee has introduced book tokens for entry of families. Each token costs Rs 40. Entry fee for individual is Rs 20.

The exhibition will be open for public between 11 am and 8.30 pm.