NEW DELHI: The shifting of regional Indian language bulletins from Delhi to respective state capitals will not involve any additional expenditure, Parliament has been told.

Minister of State for Information and Broadcasting Rajyavardhan Rathore said that Prasar Bharati had said “it is a virtual shift with a change of place of production of bulletins only. The proposed shift will also not make any difference to listeners of AIR. The studios vacated will be suitably utilised.”

The minister replied in the negative in response to a question that this will or was meant to help the private radio channels in any way.

The External Services Division of All India Radio, Delhi, broadcasts programmes over its short wave transmitters in 15 foreign languages which include French, Russian, Chinese, Swahili, Arabic, Persian, Dari, Pashtu, Sinhala, Baluchi, Burmese, Indonesian, Thai, Tibetan and English.

Meanwhile, he said in reply to another question, that BBC UK broadcasts its programmes in Hindi, Urdu, Tamil, Bangla, Gujarati, Marathi, Punjabi and Telugu. Russia broadcasts programmes in Hindi, while Sri Lanka broadcasts in Hindi, Tamil, Bangla, Urdu and Punjabi.