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DELHI: The information and broadcasting ministry is making
modifications in the Broadcasting Services Regulation Bill
in accordance with suggestions and recommendations received
from stakeholders and is confident of moving the legislation
in the latter half of the monsoon session of Parliament.
Ministry
sources told Indiantelevision.com that the Bill had been put
on the ministry’s website late last year and comments
had been invited from various stakeholders. The Bill was currently
being revised ‘line by line’ to incorporate suggestions
accepted by the ministry. According to ministry officials,
proposals were still being received and would be accommodated
wherever possible.
A
senior ministry official admitted that there was a lot of
apprehension within the ministry as to whether the Bill would
finally see the light of day, particularly as it had been
under consideration for over one decade in one form or another
and attempts had been made even earlier to introduce it in
Parliament.
First
conceptualized by the National Front government in 1997 soon
after the Prasar Bharati Act 1990 was notified, the Bill was
then shelved in view of the rapid changes taking place in
technology and referred by the National Democratic Alliance
government to a Group of Ministers headed by the then Finance
Minister to consider whether it should be converted into a
Convergence Bill incorporating the convergence of information
technology and broadcasting. However, no consensus could be
evolved till 2004 when the NDA was voted out of power.
The
information and broadcasting ministry then announced revival
of the proposal for a Broadcast legislation to provide for
a Regulatory Authority.
The
Bill provides for the appointment of a Regulatory Authority
apart from laying down other criteria for licensing and running
of broadcast channels in the country.
It
is expected that the legislation will be all-encompassing
and will therefore also incorporate several clauses in the
Cable TV Networks (Regulation) Act 1995.
The
Prasar Bharati Act also provides for setting up of a Broadcast
Authority which was never constituted, but this may become
redundant in the light of the new legislation and that law
may be amended to do away with the provision for such an Authority.
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