NEW DELHI: Doordarshan, which commenced digitization of its archival recordings in 2003, had spent Rs 9.57 crore until October last year out of the allocation of Rs 19.21 crore allocated for the purpose under the Eleventh Plan.

DD was allocated a further Rs 16.32 crore under the 12th Plan, which as remained unutilized until October last year.

In addition, DD spent sums of Rs 4.59 crore (out of the available Rs 4.82 crore), Rs 3.35 crore (out of the available Rs 3.56 crore), Rs 3.47 crore (out of the available Rs 4.27 crore and Rs 2.89 crore (from the Rs 4 crore) for 2010-11, 2011-12, 2012-13 and 2013-14 respectively for this digitization from the Internal Extra Budgetary Resources (IEBR) of Prasar Bharati.

Doordarshan has digitized 20,139 hours of recordings. Among these, AIR digitized material include archival records of Mahatma Gandhi, Sardar Patel, Dr. B.R. Ambedkar, Maulana Azad, Netaji Subash Chandra Bose, Dr. Rajendra Prasad and many other national leaders and Doordarshan recordings are under 38 categories, which include rare archival records of several national leaders.

Prasar Bharati sources told Indiantelevision.com that it plans to outsource the digitization process, and has issued an Expression of Interest (EOI) calling for applications from private entities for digitization of its archival / legacy programmes.

However, as per sources, digitized archives of Doordarshan are not accessible to the people through mobile phone applications.