New Delhi: The Government of India has notified the historic Press & Registration of Periodicals Act (PRP Act), 2023 and its Rules in its Gazette and consequently the Act has come into force from 1st March 2024.
From now on, the registration of periodicals shall be governed by the provisions of the Press and Registration of Periodicals Act (PRP Act), 2023 and the Press and Registration of Periodicals Rules.
As per the notification, the office of the Press Registrar General of India – PRGI (erstwhile Registrar of Newspapers for India – RNI) shall be carrying out the purposes of the new Act.
In tune with the ethos of Digital India, the new Act provides for an online system for facilitating the registration of newspapers and other periodicals in the country.
The new system replaces the existing manual, cumbersome processes involving multiple steps and approvals at various stages which were causing unnecessary hardships to the publishers.
As per the new Act, all applications for registration of periodicals shall be made in online mode through the Press Sewa Portal only.
Accordingly, publishers intending to bring out periodicals need to register their titles before publishing them. As the registration process will be online and guided through the software, the chances for discrepancies in the application will be drastically reduced resulting in faster processing of applications.
The status of the application will be updated at all stages and the same will be informed to the applicant through SMS and email ensuring transparency and eliminating delay due to miscommunication.
