NEW DELHI: Production facilities are being digitised at 98 centres to further enhance the reach of medium wave band transmissions of All India Radio.

AIR sources told indiantelevision.com that despite the growth of FM Radio, medium wave is being received by 98.41 per cent of the population and 90.63 per cent of the area.

The MW transmissions are being provided through 146 MW transmitters of various capacities, according to AIR sources.

A survey by AIR in 2010-11 had also found that respondents in both rural and urban areas had rated the reception quality of AIR?s Primary channel and Vividh Bharati as satisfactory.

In an effort to improve the transmission, the sources said that 17 transmitters had recently been replaced by Digital Compatible transmitters.

In addition, several new schemes are under implementation under the 11th Plan. These include installation of new transmitters at two places, replacement of old transmitters by new Digital Transmitters at 31 places, upgradation of old transmitters by new Digital transmitters at five places, digitisation of existing compatible transmitters at 36 places, and digitisation of connectivity and linkage at all places. AIR is planning to continue digitisation under the 12th and future Plans.

NEW DELHI: With All India Radio (AIR) facing 8462 vacancies in various categories, the government has granted approval for filling up 1150 posts.

The Government has also granted approval for undertaking recruitment against Group B and C posts through the Staff Selection Commission as a one-time dispensation to fill critical posts expeditiously.

Information and Broadcasting Minister Manish Tewari told Parliament that of the 8,462 vacancies, 1,314 are Group A posts while there are 1,596 Group B posts, 3,618 Group C and 1,934 group D posts.

Tewari also said that non-availability of language experts on the permanent rolls for Urdu programmes have affected the quality of the 24-hours programme on AIR.

He clarified that the Urdu services are being managed through engagement of retired personnel and through outsourcing.

He said the shortage of staff had arisen because little fresh recruitment had taken place since the formation of Prasar Bharati in 1997.

In response to another question, he said that casual presenters were being booked by AIR stations on assignment basis for six to seven days.

Earlier this year, a Parliamentary Committee had noted that All India Radio and Doordarshan have a total staff strength of 33,800 against a total sanctioned strength of 48,022, leaving a gap of 14222 posts. The most critically affected areas are the Programme Wing and the News Services Division (AIR)/DD News.

The existing strength in the Programme Wing is just 6108 out of the total sanctioned strength of 10679, leaving the gap of 4571. Similarly, in NSD/News, there are 146 vacancies in the sanctioned strength of 379 with the present strength at 255.

The Committee for Information Technology also regretted that Prasar Bharati had failed to live up to the assurance given by then Prasar Bharati chief executive officer that the Recruitment Boards for Prasar Bharati would be set up by 31 March 2011.

The Committee had been informed that the notification with regard to setting up of Recruitment Board is under inter-Ministerial consultation. The Committee was given to understand that there are still some issues to be resolved between the Ministry/Department of Expenditure and the Department of Personnel.

It is understood that the UPSC and SSC have both refused to select for a non-Governmental organisation, thus creating a new problem for the Ministry/Prasar Bharati.

The proposal for setting up a Prasar Bharati Recruitment Board was approved by Prasar Bharati Board on 21 July 2010 and discussed in the Ministry and a final proposal was referred to the Department of Personnel and Training on 15 February 2011. DOP&T concurred with the proposal in June 2011 and the comments of the Department of Expenditure (DOE) were also received on 28 September last year. The DoE had requested that a separate proposal be formulated for creation of posts for the secretariat of Prasar Bharati Recruitment Board and also requested for drafting of agreement containing terms and conditions of the members of the Board.

This had been done and the proposal sent to DoE in February 2012 and would then be sent to Law Ministry.

NEW DELHI: Information and Broadcasting (I&B) Minister Manish Tewari has assured employees of Prasar Bharati of early redressal of their grievances including long-pending promotions.

During his first visit to All India Radio, Doordarshan and the Prasar Bharati headquarters after becoming the Minister on Wednesday, Tewari was assured by Prasar Bharati chief executive officer Jawhar Sircar that the recruitment rules for most cadres were ready and promotions would be granted shortly.

Sircar said the government?s decision bear the expenditure on salaries of most employees and the recent financial concessions announced following the recommendations of a Group of Ministers had greatly helped the pubcaster in initiating new programmes.

The Minister was apprised about the functioning of AIR and DD and the broadcaster?s immediate plans for expansion.

The minister assured the employees that they were free to approach him directly whenever they had any problems.

NEW DELHI: The Information and Broadcasting Ministry will have wide-ranging consultations soon with the industry to fulfill its objective of turning India into a teleport hub for uplinking / downlinking satellite television channels so that there is no dependence on Hong Kong and Singapore.

The Ministry will work out modalities, challenges and road map for this purpose, I&B secretary Uday Kumar Varma said at the media
and entertainment summit, ?The Big Picture?, organised by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII).

Varma said India becoming a teleport hub could be instrumental in attracting accelerated flow of foreign direct investment (FDI) as also state-of-the-art technology and can help move up in the value chain in content generation.

The recent decision of the government to allow 74 per cent FDI in DTH, IPTV, and Mobile TV etc. are some of the steps that have been taken in this direction, he said, underscoring the fact that these steps would be game changers to make India a ?digitally happening place?.

Varma assured that the auction process for Phase III in FM Radio aimed at adding another 839 stations in over 290 towns and cities would commence by the end of the current financial year. Many positive steps would be taken in revamping All India Radio?s FM Radio to enhance its reach and content.

The empowered Group of Ministers is looking into some of the grey areas in the auction process. The government is also taking steps to restructure national broadcasting by enabling Prasar Bharati to recruit fresh talent and restructuring its financial flows.

Referring to the centenary of Indian cinema, Varma invited the doyens of the Indian film industry to join the tableaux to be presented at the Republic Day Parade 2013 in New Delhi on this subject, by walking down Rajpath on 26 January.

He also said the proposed National Film Heritage Mission (NFHM) had been set up with the objectives of undertaking frame-by-frame picture and sound restoration of more than 2500 films that are an important component of the Indian film industry. The Mission with a budget of Rs four billion would also look at constructing preservation vaults conforming to international standards for archiving the restored material and for conducting workshops and training.

Referring to the impact of piracy on the growth of the film industry, Varma said the government proposed to carry out an all-encompassing multi-media campaign during the 12th Plan period involving all stakeholders and film and music industries.

He also said the government would set up a Film Commission that would enable institution of a single window clearance system for shooting in India. He disclosed that in this regard his Ministry has signed an MOU with the Tourism Ministry to work towards promoting India as a global film shooting destination.

To give an impetus to an impetus to animation, gaming and VFX industry, the government would set up a Centre of Excellence that would produce technical professionals to cater to the need of high end human resources and IPR creation, under public?private partnership. The first such centre would come at Mohali near Chandigarh by the end of the financial year.

The Ministry is seriously considering using social media and may launch its own channel on the lines of You Tube.

The two-day meet is discussing various subjects over different sessions relating to media as a catalyst for social change, creating competitive business models, regulating sounds and images, and working to take the media and entertainment industry to the $100 billion mark.

NEW DELHI: Close on the heels of a financial package including some waivers approved recently by the Union Cabinet, Prasar Bharati today announced that the government had approved the filling up of 1150 posts in the programming and the technical wings of Doordarshan and All India Radio.

These posts are part of the 3452 essential category posts which were approved by the Group of Ministers (GoM) headed by the present Finance Minister P. Chidamabaram in 2011. A majority of these posts belong to Group B & C, that is, Grade Pay of less than Rs 4,600. While the Group B & C would be filled up by Staff Selection Commission, the remaining would be filled up by the Prasar Bharati Recruitment Board. The recruitment process is expected to be over by middle of the next year.

Prasar Bharati CEO Jawhar Sircar said: ?This is the first major infusion of new blood into Doordarshan and All India Radio after a period of 15 long years. After approval of the Cabinet for the financial restructuring, which involved a waiver of Rs 120.71 billion, this is the second biggest decision. It would go a long way in creating quality content for our viewers and help us in facing the emerging competition.?

The 1150 posts include Assistant Station Directors, Assistant Director (Programme), Engineering Assistants, Programme Executives, Transmission Executives, Technicians, Camerapersons, Production Assistants and Administrative Staff.

Member (Personnel) Brig. (Retd) V A M Hussain added: ?These were critical and essential posts, which had lapsed and needed to be revived. A number of our stations were without engineers and programming staff, which had affected their operations. It is a new dawn on the horizon of Prasar Bharati and will help the Corporation to tide over its acute manpower shortage.?

After the revival of the Prasar Bharati Board under the current CEO, it has been working on a number of plans to revive the public broadcaster through aggressive focus on shoring up revenues through marketing, organisational restructuring and manpower planning.

The pubcaster plans to have six senior officers with domain expertise to look after various verticals including Marketing, DTH, Technology, Infrastructure, Archives and Security. The Corporation has also engaged an HR Advisor of retired Secretary level to expedite promotions of staff persons, who had stagnated at the same posts for as long as 20 years and had little motivation to give their best.

In other organisational reforms, the Doordarshan and AIR zones are being combined into a total of seven zones viz. North Zone, North Central Zone, Central Zone, East Zone, West Zone, South Zone and North-East Zone. At present there are 12 Zones in All India Radio and six Zones in Doordarshan and 5 Zones in Engineering Wing combined for AIR/DD.

In the restructured model, each Zone will have three ADGs with one each for Engineering Projects, Engineering Maintenance and Programmes & Administration. The reorganisation, which makes DD and AIR coterminous for the first time in the history, is aimed at decentralisation and improvement in organisational efficiency.

NEW DELHI: All India Radio and Doordarshan, which provide a platform for political parties to make poll broadcasts before every election, will also organise a maximum of two panel discussions and/or debates on the Kendras/Stations for the forthcoming elections to the state assemblies in Himachal Pradesh and Gujarat.

Each eligible party can nominate one representative to such a programme, but the Election Commission of India will approve the names of coordinators for such panel discussions and debates in consultation with the Prasar Bharati Corporation.

The Commission has, as in previous years, worked out a schedule for the time to be given for poll broadcasts to different parties. The facilities of use of broadcast and telecast time will be available only to National Parties as there are no ‘Recognised State Parties‘ in Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh.

The facilities will be available from the Regional Kendra of the All India Radio (AIR) and Doordarshan and in the headquarters of Himachal Pradesh and Gujarat and relayed by other stations within the respective States.

A base time of 45 minutes will be given to each National Party uniformly on the Regional Kendra of Doordarshan network and All India Radio network in the State of Himachal Pradesh and Gujarat.

The additional time to be allotted to the parties has been decided on the basis of the poll performance of the parties in the last assembly election from the State of Himachal Pradesh and Gujarat.

In a single session of broadcast, no party will be allocated more than 15 minutes.

The period of broadcast and telecast will be between the last date of filing the nominations and will end two days before the date of poll in the State of Himachal Pradesh and Gujarat. However, there will be no telecast or broadcast during the 48 hours preceding the close of polls as per specific provisions of the Representation of People Act, 1951.

Prasar Bharati in consultation with the Commission will decide the actual date and time for broadcast and telecast. This will be subject to the broad technical constraints governing the actual time of transmission available with the Doordarshan and All India Radio.

The guidelines prescribed by the Commission for telecast and broadcast will be strictly followed. The parties will be required to submit transcripts and recording in advance. The parties can get this recorded at their own cost in studios, which meet the technical standards prescribed by Prasar Bharati or at the Doordarshan/All India Radio Kendras.

They can, in the alternative, have these recorded in the studios of Doordarshan and All India Radio by advance requests. In such cases, the recordings may be done at the State Capital and at timings indicated by Doordarshan/All India Radio in advance.

Time Vouchers will be available in the denomination of five minutes with one voucher having time allotment from 1 to 4 minutes and the parties will be free to combine them suitably. The allotment of time to different political parties is given in a statement enclosed herewith.

Introduced for the Lok Sabha elections in 1998, the scheme of free broadcasts was extended by the Commission to the State Assemblies held after 1998 and General Elections to the Lok Sabha in 1999, 2004 and 2009.

With the amendments to the Representation of People Act 1951 through "Election and Other Related Laws (Amendment) Act, 2003" and the rules notified thereunder, equitable time sharing for campaigning by recognised political parties on electronic media now has statutory basis.

In exercise of the powers conferred by clause (a) of the Explanation below section 39A of the Representation of People Act, 1951, the Central Government has notified all such broadcasting media which are owned or controlled or financed wholly or substantially by funds provided to them by the Central Government as the electronic media for the purposes of that section. Therefore, the Commission has decided to extend the said scheme of equitable time sharing on electronic media through Prasar Bharati Corporation to the ensuing General Election to the State Legislative Assemblies of Himachal Pradesh and Gujarat 2012.

GENERAL ELECTION TO
THE STATE LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY OF HIMACHAL PRADESH 2012.

Time available to National Parties on Regional Kendras/State Capital Kendras of Doordarshan/All India Radio

GENERAL ELECTION TO
THE STATE LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY OF GUJARAT 2012.

Time available to National/State Parties on Regional Kendras/State Capital Kendras of Doordarshan/All India Radio

LIST OF POLITICAL PARTIES