Pitroda panel on Prasar Bharati to submit report in 6 months

The Sam Pitroda committee, which is looking into the issue of revamping public broadcaster Prasar Bharati, is expected to submit its report in six months, Doordarshan's Director General (News) said here today.
The committee, formed by the Union government to improve the functioning of the public service broadcaster, would make suggestions on various aspects, including technological upgradation, content, government relations and social responsibilities of Doordarshan and All India Radio, S M Khan told a press meet here.
Pitroda, who is adviser to the Prime Minister on Information Infrastructure and Innovation, had set up various working groups to look into different aspects of the matter.

These working groups had a meeting earlier this month and decided to draw up their reports within a month. After studying these, the Pitroda committee would come out with the final report within six months, he said.
Khan, who was here to launch the webcasting of Doordarshan news in Malayalam, said several initiatives were on to improve Doordarshan news both technologically and content wise.
Though "ground-level factual reporting" is still the unique feature of DD news, the broadcaster had recently added debates and discussions as part of some of its prime-time newscasts.

Some of the immediate steps in this direction included providing remote satellite service (RLS) facilities to four DD Kendras -- Patna, Jaipur, Bhopal and Lucknow, he said.

Noting that DD Trivandrum was the first Regional News Unit (RNU) of the network to webcast news bulletin in a regional language, Khan said a proposal to launch 24x7 news channel in Malayalam was under active consideration.
Earlier, inaugurating the webcast,he said "making available our regular bulletins on the web makes DD friendly to gennext, apart from giving a fillip to the sense of belonging and nostalgia for non-resident Keralites."
P K Subhash, Additional Director of Doordarshan, said DD Trivandrum generated inhouse revenue of Rs 15 crores in 2012-13, against Rs 11 crores the previous year.
S Ramesh, DDG Southern Region, S Subramanian, Director News, DDK Trivandrum, and News Editor N Devan, News Editor DDK also spoke at the function.