The Pioneer to enter Chhattisgarh

The English daily will launch its Raipur edition in early May.

The Pioneer is all set to launch an edition in Chhattisgarh next month. It will be a franchisee arrangement with Vijay Budhia, a real estate player of the region. The Pioneer Group plans to launch the English daily from Raipur on May 6.

Earlier, Budhia was the franchisee holder of Hindi newspaper Jansatta, before the daily was discontinued.

Talking to afaqs! about the group's decision to enter Chhattisgarh, Chandan Mitra, editor and managing director , The Pioneer, says, "We have been steadily launching our editions across North India for some time now and with this edition, we will spread our wings in the eastern part of the country as well. The Chhattisgarh edition will give us visibility even in some parts of Odisha."

Mitra adds that the Chhattisgarh franchise holder also plans to launch the Hindi Pioneer from the state in the next six months.

While the printing centre of The Pioneer will be in Raipur, the newspaper will be distributed across cities that come under a 150 km radius, including Bilaspur, Bhillai and Durg.

The English newspaper will be launched with an initial print run of more than 25,000 copies and will have a cover price of Rs 2. The new edition will have, on an average, 16 pages of the main issue on weekdays and 28 pages on Sundays. VivaCity, the regular supplement of The Pioneer, will be distributed along with it. One page of VivaCity will be dedicated to local developments of the state.

The Raipur edition is the eighth edition of the newspaper. The Pioneer also has editions in Delhi, Lucknow, Bhubaneswar, Kochi, Bhopal, Dehradun and Chandigarh.