New Delhi: In a bid to pitch India as an uplinking hub, the government today announced relaxation in guidelines for compliance for television channels and also made a 30-minute daily public interest broadcast mandatory, mainly for entertainment channels.
As per the revised guidelines, television channels are required to broadcast 30 minutes of public interest content daily on themes of national interest such as education and spread of literacy, agriculture and rural development, health and family welfare, science and technology, welfare of women, welfare of the weaker sections of the society, protection of environment and of cultural heritage and national integration.
“It is not that the government will give any programmes to the television channels for broadcasting under public interest content. The channels are free to create their own content on the themes mentioned in the guidelines,” I&B Secretary Apurva Chandra was quoted as saying.
Currently, only 30 channels are uplinked from India out of the total 897 registered with the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, officials said.
“Requirement for seeking permission for live telecast of events has been done away with; only prior registration of events to be telecast live would be necessary,” Sanjiv Shankar, Joint Secretary (Broadcasting) said in a presentation to the media.
The new guidelines state that a company can use news gathering equipment other than Digital Satellite News Gathering (DSNG), such as optic fibre, back pack, mobile, for which no separate permission would be necessary.
The guidelines state that electronic news gathering devices can be used.
The Centre has revised the guidelines after 11 years after taking into account the technological advances in the interim period. The guidelines were first issued in 2005 and revised in 2011.
The guidelines also grant permission for a news agency for a five year period against one year at present.
Comments are closed.