MUMBAI: The ministry of information & broadcasting is seriously considering farming out the monitoring of television channels for surrogate advertising to an external agency, it has been reported.

I&B officials were quoted as saying by Hindu Businessline that "hiring an external agency was being proposed because the Government did not have the infrastructure to monitor all the channels that were being beamed into households."

Further the report states that the inter-ministerial committee looking into the violations of the advertising code, in its second meeting a few days ago, had decided to issue show cause notices to channels displaying ads of eight liquor and cigarette brands.

The brands under scrutiny are Aristocrat Whisky, 8PM, Whitehall, Smirnoff Vodka, Haywards, Royal Challenge, Kingfisher, and Charms cigarette, the report says.

It may be recalled that a high-powered government committee headed by I&B ministry additional secretary (broadcasting) Anil Baijal, comprising mostly government officials, apart from representatives from some NGOs and the Advertising Council of India had been mandated to look into the issue of surrogate and objectionable advertisements.