Content generation in Indian languages, a priority for the Government – Shri Venkaiah Naidu
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.