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Prasar Bharati, at its next board meeting on April 9, plans to recommend to the Government to reintroduce licence fees for TV and radio sets as it would be a major source of revenue.

VISAKHAPATNAM, March 20

ANDHRA Pradesh has the highest penetration of cable networks (84 per cent) as against the national average of 48 per cent, but stringent action should be taken against the cable operators in the State as well as the country if they do not telecast the Doordarshan channels clearly, Mr K.S. Sarma, Chief Executive Officer, Prasar Bharati, has said.

At a press conference here on Thursday, he said the private cable operators were not showing the DD programmes clearly and the lack of clarity was driving the viewers to the private channels. The cable operators have teamed up with private channels and the provisions of the Cable Act are too lax to punish them. He said the Government should tighten the laws to make the operators accountable.

He said the Prasar Bharati at its next board meeting on April 9 would recommend to the Government to reintroduce licence fees for TV and radio sets as it would be a major source of revenue. ``In fact, the world over, for public broadcasters, licence fees is the major source of revenue. Then they need not depend on Government grants or advertisement revenue,'' Mr Sarma said, citing the example of the BBC. He said there were 12.5 crore radio sets and 8 crore TV sets in the country and the revenue would be substantial.

He said the Government had sanctioned Rs 500 crore to the Prasar Bharati during the Tenth Plan to improve DD and AIR programmes and of the amount Rs 85 crore would be spent during the current year. Digitalisation was going on at a brisk pace in Prasar Bharati, he said.

Contrary to the public perception, he said, the Prasar Bharati was not overstaffed and in fact the present staff strength of 50,000 would not be sufficient. He said he had requested the Government to appoint more staff and some employees may be appointed in future on a contract basis.

The advertisment revenue of the Prasar Bharati was presently of the order of Rs 700 crore and all efforts would be made to take it to the Rs 1,000-crore mark during the next two years, he said. The corporation earned Rs 30 crore in ad revenue due to the cricket world cup in South Africa.

He said the TV studio at Warangal would be completed and inaugurated shortly. Three more new radio stations would come up in the State at Kakinada, Srikakulam and Karimnagar.

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