April 01, 2002

'11'

    The Ministry of Information and Broadcasting has taken a major policy initiative in the 10^th Five-Year Plan for the upgradation and technological development of AIR and Doordarshan. Major thrust areas identified for this include expansion of FM Radio Service to achieve coverage of 60 per cent of the population by the end of the Tenth Plan, digitalization of 50 per cent production facilities to ensure good quality convergence ready content, which in turn will also support the interactive radio, achieving 50 per cent automation of studio facilites and creation of high quality content with long shelf life, to enable AIR to fulfil its role of Public Service Broadcaster effectively. The plan also chalked out a comprehensive action for Doordarshan. These includes-coverage of uncovered areas through multi-channel digital satellite distribution in KU Band, full digitalization of production facilities in major Kendras and partial in other Kendras to ensure production and processing of good quality convergence ready content and to start IT enabled multimedia services. This has been revealed in the Annual Report 2001-2002 of the Information and Broadcasting Ministry placed in the Parliament.

    As per the report Prasar Bharati Board took several initiatives and policy decisions last year to increase its revenue resources, like hiring out Prasar Bharati’s surplus infrastructural and technical facilities, sharing of infrastructure facilities such as towers, etc., with other broadcasters, providing consultrancy services for setting up broadcasting facilities by other broadcasters/ service providers, etc. An AIR Resource Centre, has been set up to carry out these activities. A process has also been initiated to invite global tenders for renting out the surplus production facilities of Doordarshan.

    Between April and November of 2001, one new FM radio station was commissioned and twelve MW transmitters were replaced /upgraded. The total number of radio stations now stands at 208 and transmitters at 332 (MW-149, SW-55 and FM-128). In addition 4 new radio stations are technically ready for commissioning and 5 more are expected to be ready by the end of March 2002. Also 16 transmitter projects are expected to be ready by March 2002. Doordarshan commissioned 61 TV transmitters between April and December 2001. As on 1 January 2002, the total number of Doordarshan transmitters stands at 1,236. Doordarshan also commissioned four new studios at Chandigarh, Dehradun, Mathura and Trissur, taking the total number of studios to 55. In order to open the FM Radio for private parties an open auction held in March 2000. Twenty-nine companies were selected for allocation of 101 FM Radio channels in 40 centres. Four private FM Radio Stations have since become operational, at Bangalore, Indore, Ahmedabad and Lucknow. Licensees for Delhi, Kolkata and Chennai have been granted extension of time by eight months to co-locate their set up on the towers of AIR. FM licensees for Mumbai have been give 24 months time to operationalise the co-located set ups.

    The report states that the country is poised to become a major uplinking hub in South Asia with the implementation of the new uplinking policy. 54 TV channels have been already permitted to uplink from India and 12 companies have been permitted to set up 13 uplinking hubs (teleports). On the other hand to curb the arbitrary hike in the rate of subscription by the cable operators and TV channels Government is examining the feasibility of mandatory installation of Conditional Access System (CAS). A Task Force constituted to make recommendations on the feasibility and the desirability of introducing the CAS, has already submitted its report and is being examined by the Ministry.

    The Press Information Bureau the nodal agency of the Government to disseminate information to the print and electronic media on Government policies, as usual played a vital role by highlighting the major events during the year including coordinating the elaborate media management arrangements for Indo-Pak Summit at Agra and related events at New Delhi and Jaipur. During the period from April 2001 to 31^st December 2001 the Bureau covered as many as 1820 assignments, released 2021 photos and distributed 1,35,836 prints of photographs to the electronic and print media. The PIB website acquires a prominent place in the Government’s information dissemination infrastructure. It gets about 50,000 hits a day. The major campaigns handled by PIB included the Women’s Empowerment Year, Right to Education Bill, Good Urban Governance Campaign, New Economic Measures, Rehabilitation efforts after Gujarat Earthquake, articulation of Indian viewpoint at Doha Ministerial Conference and Government’s counter-terrorism efforts. PIB has already opened new offices at Dehradun and Raipur. It also proposes to open its offices at Ranchi, the capital of Jharkhand and Itanagar, the capital of Arunachal Pradesh which are the only State capitals without a PIB office.

    Media Units/ Autonomous Bodies working under the Information and Broadcasting Ministry have done commendable jobs. During the period from April to December 2001, Publications Division published 123 books in English, Hindi, Urdu and regional languages. Employment News/Rozgar Samachar published by the Division has a weekly circulation of around 5.22 lakhs.

    Women’s Empowerment was one of the major campaigns conducted by the Field Publicity Units during 2001-2002. Directorate of Advertising and Visual Publicity (DAVP) also took one of the biggest ever multi-media campaign to mark the year 2001 as Women’s Empowerment Year. A new Advertising Policy of the Government of India and guidelines for empanelment of newspapers with DAVP has been introduced. The Government has also constituted a Committee to carry out a comprehensive review of existing rate structure for DAVP advertisements and to suggest a new rate structure formula. It also streamlined the flow of information particularly to the far-flung areas and the North Eastern region by hoisting tender notices and advertisements on the web-page. The clearance of advertisement bills has also been computerized for early clearance.