Address Prasar Bharati issues on priority:Par panel to I&B min

Not satisfied with the I&B Ministry's response to its recommendations, a parliamentary panel today termed the ministry's approach to matters related to Prasar Bharati as "non serious" and sought concrete action on a range of issues concerning the public broadcaster.
In its report presented in the Lok Sabha, the standing committee on information and technology said it had earlier observed that functional and operative autonomy of Prasar Bharati had been diluted because of various provisions of Prasar Bharati Act and shortage of staff.
It said it had made recommendations that the I&B Ministry should address to various concerns expressed by Prasar Bharati CEO Jawhar Sircar regarding help in grant of service tax exemption, issuing directives to all ministries and PSUs to extensively use AIR and Doordarshan for publicity campaigns.

The CEO had also sought complete waiver of space segment and spectrum charges on actual basis every year for uninterrupted allocation of frequency authorisation space segment to AIR and Doordarshan.
The standing committee said that in its action taken reply, the I&B Ministry only said "recommendations noted for compliance."
"Such a generalised response on the part of the ministry to issues concerning Prasar Bharati as this reflects the non serious approach of the ministry to issues concerning Prasar Bharati," the standing committee said.
Emphasising the need to address all the issues on priority, the Committee said that ministry should apprise it of action taken within a period of three months.