NEW DELHI: Seeing the "sad state of affairs in the public broadcaster Prasar Bharati?s functioning", a Parliamentary Committee has reiterated once again that there is need to review the Prasar Bharati Act 1990 "comprehensively" and "without any further delay".

The Parliamentary Standing Committee for Information Technology said it has been assured by the Information and Broadcasting Ministry that it is "still in the process of preparing" a separate cabinet note for the amendments suggested by the Group of Ministers to the Act.

The Committee has taken note of the failures in systemic problems, massive under-utilisation of funds, acute shortage of staff etc. and have emphasise that the various provisions of the Prasar Bharati Act 1990 need to be reviewed comprehensively keeping in view the ongoing scenario and new legislations modifications to the existing Act should be brought to Parliament without any further delay.

At the outset, the Standing Committee noted that in various reports earlier, it had consistently been recommending for organisational and financial restructuring of Prasar Bharati.

The Standing Committee has also been expressing ?serious concern? over the non-implementation of various provisions of the Act such as constitution of a Parliamentary Committee and the Broadcasting Council as per provisions in the Act.

"In spite of the continuous insistence on implementation of these provisions", the Ministry has neither constituted a Parliamentary Committee and Broadcasting Council nor these have been deleted from the Act by bringing amendments to the Act.

The Committee was informed that GoM on Prasar Bharati constituted to examine various issues pertaining to Prasar Bharati had made a number of recommendations aimed at bringing about significant increase in the degree of efficiency in the overall operation of Prasar Bharati on one hand and improving governance in Prasar Bharati on the other. It has also undertaken comprehensive review to the Act and suggested certain amendments.

As elaborated by the Secretary during the course of evidence, there is also urgent need to address the issue of relationship between Prasar Bharati and the Government and redefine it in clear-cut terms.

The Committee is separately examining the functioning of the Prasar Bharati organisation and will come out with appropriate recommendations on the subject in due course.

However, "going by the way the organisation is functioning at this juncture" and the views expressed by the Secretary and the CEO Prasar Bharati, the Committee "at this point of time would like to emphasise that comprehensive amendments to the Act are long overdue" and should be brought forward "expeditiously" after wider consultations with all concerned.

Interestingly, the Committee had made a similar recommendation in its examination of the Ministry?s budgetary demands for 2011-12 on 4 August last year and an Action Report on 27 March this year.

NEW DELHI: Irked by consistent under-spending and under-utilisation of funds by the Information and Broadcasting Ministry, a Parliamentary Committee has asked the Ministry to identify the grey areas, make the implementation of its schemes more effective and step up the monitoring mechanism so as to ensure optimum utilisation of funds.

Taking note of the observation before the Standing Committee for Information Technology by the Secretary in the Ministry that the under-utilisation and approval of schemes was primarily due to the problems in Prasar Bharati which depended on the Ministry for its funding, the Committee has expressed the hope that the problems relating to Prasar Bharati are addressed and ways are found during the Twelfth Plan resulting into effective implementation of various programmes which would ensure cent per cent utilisation of the outlay.

The Secretary had told the Committee that these problems would ease after the Government accepts the recommendations of the Group of Ministers on Prasar Bharati. But the Committee noted that the same reasons have continuously been repeated by the Ministry, whenever the question of under spending has been raised by the Committee.

The Committee emphasized the need for periodic close monitoring of the implementation as well as the expenditure position under the three sectors - Broadcasting, Film and Information.

The Ministry should make serious efforts to identify the weakness in the system and streamline the planning process so as to ensure effective utilisation of Plan outlay - Rs 13.05 billion - during the year 2012-13.

The financial performance of the Ministry particularly under the Plan schemes during the Eleventh Plan has not been very satisfactory, the Committee noted. The allocations provided at Budget Estimates were reduced at Revised Estimates stage due to overall trend of utilisation. Even the reduced allocations could not be utilised fully resulting into under spending of the scarce resources during each year of the Eleventh Plan.

The Committee said the Ministry was allocated Rs 36.86 billion at the Budget Estimate stage against the projections of Rs 781.212 billion if the overall allocations during the Eleventh Plan (which ended on 31 March 2012) as a whole are taken into consideration. The BE allocations were then reduced to Rs 31.44 billion at the Revised Estimates stage. The utilisation is to the tune of Rs 25.79 billion, thus resulting into under spending of Rs 5.64 billion. The under spending is more during the years 2008-09 and 2010-11 when 66.99 per cent and 74.74 per cent of the outlay respectively could be utilised.

The Committee observed that the Ministry had proposed the Demands for Grants for the year 2012-13 amounting to Rs 27.37 billion which comprises Rs 9.05 billion as the Plan outlay and Rs 18.32 billion as the Non-Plan outlay.

The financial performance of the Ministry particularly under the Plan schemes during the Eleventh Plan ?has not been very satisfactory?, the Committee notes. The allocations provided at Budget Estimates were reduced at Revised Estimates stage due to overall trend of utilisation. Even the reduced allocations could not be utilised fully resulting into under spending of the scarce resources during each year of the Eleventh Plan.

The Committee has consistently been saying that under spending results in blocking of the national resources.

The Committee observed that during the year 2011-12, out of the proposed allocation of Rs 20.26 billion under the non-Plan head for the three Sectors - Film, Information and Broadcasting, the BE was Rs 17.83 billion, which was increased to Rs 18.18 billon at the RE stage, but the Actual Expenditure was Rs 18.13 billion, 99.74 per cent of the RE allocation.

The Committee also observes that the proposed allocation of the Ministry for the year 2012-13 under non-Plan head is Rs 18.32 billion which is more than double of the Plan Outlay of Rs 9.05 billion.

Justifying the increase, the Secretary has stated that many of the spending of Prasar Bharati is evaluated in terms of creating infrastructure. Furthermore for many programmes of Directorate of Field Publicity (DFP) and the Song and Drama Division, a lot of expenditure takes place through non-Plan budget and the outputs are not tangible.

While appreciating the facts enumerated by the Secretary, the Committee would like the Ministry to give the details of the activities under non-Plan head for which the allocations during 2012-13 have almost been double. Besides, the Committee would like to emphasize for rationalisation of expenditure under the non-Plan head as per the General Financial Rules. The Ministry should try to contain its expenditure in non-Plan head so as to have a proper balance between the Plan and non-Plan head, the Ministry says.

NEW DELHI: The Information and Broadcasting Ministry has found 37 channels to have failed to become operational even after one year of permission.

The licence of five of these has been cancelled, while three had requested for extension of time against notice of cancellation. 27 TV channels had sought extension for operationalising their channels. They have been asked to submit Performance Bank Guarantee. The permission of two channels has been withdrawn at the request of the concerned company.

A total of 681 television channels are operational in the country in April this year, out of a total of 825 television channels which had been permitted by the government as on 19 January this year.

Minister of State for Information and Broadcasting C M Jatua said that 116 channels are within the prescribed limit of one year for operationalisation under the Uplinking/Downlinking Guidelines.

The teleports have to pay Rs 87,500 per MHz per annum to the Wireless Planning and Coordination wing of the Communications and Information Technology Ministry for uplinking TV channels.

MUMBAI: UK media watchdog Ofcom has imposed a financial penalty of ?75,000 on Al Ehya Digital Television Limited in respect of its service, Noor TV.

This penalty follows Ofcom‘s finding that Noor TV‘s ‘Saturday Night Special‘ programme had breached some rules of the September 2010 Broadcasting Code:
 
‘Saturday Night Special‘ was a programme which mainly consisted of a presenter taking calls from viewers who donated money to the channel in return for prayers for themselves or for their relatives.

Ofcom concluded that the programme misled its audience about the purpose of the money donated via a charity website; there was potential for viewers to suffer financial harm, particularly vulnerable viewers; and there was a failure to separately account for the funds received.