Shri
Naidu announces 2 new Shortwave Solid State digital transmitters of 100 KW to
broadcast across the border for Afghanistan- Pakistan region
I&B Minister convenes
meeting to review functioning of media Units in UTs
Minister for
Information & broadcasting, Shri Venkaiah Naidu has said that the
Government under the leadership of Prime Minister has been working proactively
with the States/UTs to enhance the cooperation in the field of communication
& outreach. Cooperation between Centre and States/UTs in content generation
in Indian languages and local dialects was critical to effectively reach out to
people in their own language. Adopting innovative ways and leveraging New Media
in information dissemination was necessary to keep pace with the changing
communication paradigm. Minister stated this while chairing a meeting to review
the functioning of the media units of Ministry of I&B located in the Union
Territories here today. Col. Rajyavardhan Rathore, Minister of State for
I&B, Prof. Jagdish Mukhi, Lieutenant Governor of Andaman & Nicobar
Islands, Secretary I&B, Shri N K Sinha, representatives from UTs and senior
officers from Ministry were also present during the meeting.
Soliciting
cooperation from the UTs, Shri Naidu stressed upon
the need to ensure effective implementation of Cable TV Act in order to
restrict airing of objectionable content and unauthorized channels.
He urged UTs to appoint Nodal officers who can assist the DMs for this task in
the UTs. He also highlighted that UT
administration was required to direct concerned District Magistrate’s to
investigate the matter for identifying non-existing publications in their
districts and cancel the declarations of such publications as per the PRB Act.
Out of 16,132 registered publications in Delhi, only 3704 publications has
submitted their Annual Returns in the last five years.
During the review meeting, Shri Naidu announced that
the All India Radio would be commissioning of two new Shortwave Solid State
digital transmitters of 100 kW power each for dissemination of content across
the border for Afghanistan- Pakistan region by the end of August 2017. The
transmitters shall be installed in Delhi. For the Andaman and Nicobar, a new
100 W FM transmitter would be installed in Car Nicobar by the end of the
Financial Year. He also mentioned that to enhance the outreach, the 3KW FM
transmitter in Daman would be replaced by 6KW transmitter. Similarly, in Karaikal,
Puducherry, the present 6 KW FM transmitter would be replaced by 10 KW FM
transmitter to enhance the reach.
Highlighting the
importance of communication in local dialects, Shri Naidu urged the UTs to give
eMphasis to setting up of community radio stations in UTs. He also mentioned
the liberalised subsidy of 75% by Central Government for stakeholders in
this regard.
Shri Naidu
reiterated that the Government believed in cooperative federalism and that the centre
& states/UTs need to work as Team India in scripting the development
narrative.
Col.
Rajyavardhan Rathore, Minister of State for I&B mentioned that the
monitoring of the content broadcast by cable operators/ channels can be done
using a software and that physical verification was not required.
Earlier today,
Secretary I&B chaired a review meeting with the officials from UTs, senior
officials from Ministry and media units heads to discuss and deliberate on the concerned
issues.
CP/GV
