PM to inaugurate national media centre, will house PIB

A swanky national media centre spread over a 1.95 acre plot on Raisina road in the heart of Delhi and equipped with latest technologies of information dissemination will be inaugurated by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi here tomorrow.
The Centre has been planned on the lines of media centres in some of the prominent capitals of the world such as Washington and Tokyo, the I&B ministry said today.
It will have offices of the Press Information Bureau (PIB) as well as special facilities for media.
Located at 7-E, Raisina Road, it is in proximity to Rashtrapati Bhawan, government offices, Vigyan Bhavan and Parliament House. The location will cut distance and travel time between events for dignitaries and the media personnel, the ministry said.

The Centre has been constructed by the National Buildings Construction Corporation (NBCC) at a cost of Rs 60 crore over a period of three years with a total covered area of 13,867 sqm. The plot size is 7787.46 sqm (1.95 acres).
It has a press conference hall for 283 media persons, a briefing room for about 60 persons, 24 work stations for journalists, a library, media lounge and cafeteria. The press conference hall and media lounge are wi-fi enabled.

Among the facilities provided at the centre are optic fibre internet backbone with redundancy, mini data centre for application development and hosting webcast, including live webcast, Video feed to TV channels, IT facilities to media persons in work area and lounge, internet telephony and AV Video Wall.

The world class media centre will have two basements, a ground floor and four floors above it.
The project is aimed at further improving dissemination of information about government policies and programmes, the ministry said.
The Centre was initially conceptualised by the PIB in 1989 to facilitate greater interaction between the government and the media with a state-of- the-art equipped media centre.