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Tewari, who took charge of his new assignment this morning,
said that he would take forward the comprehensive policies of
the UPA Government in the media and entertainment sectors.
The
first-time Minister met his predecessor Ambika Soni to understand
the Ministry's stand on various programmes, including digitisation.
He was also briefed by I&B secretary Uday Kumar Verma
who gave him a preview of the work being done by the ministry
and the priorities that have been set.
Queried
about key priority areas, Tewari said that he would like to
express his views only after he had a comprehensive briefing
by officials. However, digitisation is clearly the key priority
for the ministry at this point.
"With
regards to digitisation, the ministry has already put a road
map in place and there are certain benchmarks which they have
delineated. After talking to people who have been looking
into this particular aspect, I will be in a better position
to apprise you where have we reached and how much of the benchmarks
that we had set out have been fulfilled," Tewari told
reporters during a brief interaction after taking office as
the Minister.
Tewari
will have his task cut out as only two days are left for the
deadline and political parties in Mumbai, Kolkata and Chennai
are already pressurising the government to have the deadline
extended on the ground that a large number of homes are yet
to be digitised.
Cable
operators in these cities have also warned that there will
be public backlash if the government goes ahead with the deadline
and signals to analogue homes are switched off which would
mean a large number of dark homes, particularly in Chennai
and Kolkata.
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Tewari
said that the ministry had put in place a roadmap for achieving
the target of switching over from analogue to digital. The
Ministry has taken efforts to involve the key stakeholders
associated with the digitisation initiative.