NEW DELHI: The local programmes from the Gangtok Kendra of Doordarshan were uplinked to satellite on 15 September.

Doordarshan director general C. Lalrosanga was present on the occasion and welcomed Gangtok to what he called the ‘satellite club’ by coming at par with other Northeastern states.

The telecast of local programming of DD Gangtok has also been increased by two hours from today, Lalrosanga told Indiantelevision.com in a telephonic message.

The development comes even as a proposal for separate 24-hour Doordarshan channels for each state in the Northeast is pending with the Information and Broadcasting Ministry.

Although DD has a 24x7 Northeast channel at present, it covers all the states with the result that not enough time is available to the programming of each state.

While Prasar Bharati had initially proposed three more channels for the Northeast around two years earlier, this had been revised to one channel per state late last year.

It was proposed that since Doordarshan had infrastructure worth several hundred crores in each of the states, it would require around Rs 6 - 10 crore for initiating the production of software of these channels. However, it would then require regular funding to keep the channels running.