NEW DELHI: Stressing that revenue generation is not the main objective of Prasar Bharati, Parliament was today told that the pubcaster is generating its revenue through Internal Extra Budgetary Resources (IEBR) to meet its operating expenses.

Minister of State for Information and Broadcasting Rajyavardhan Rathore said in reply to a question that the government was providing 100% salary support to Prasar Bharati, apart from plan grant for creation of Capital Assets and Content Development.

He said Prasar Bharati’s primary mandate is to organize and conduct public broadcasting service with the intent to inform, educate and entertain the public and to ensure a balanced development of broadcasting on radio and television in the country.

Listing various achievements as an outcome of measures taken in recent years, he said as far as All India Radio was concerned, a total of 610 (MW-143, SW-48, FM-419) which included 195 100 W FM Transmitters had been commissioned by 10 February this year as against 432 transmitters in March, 2012 (MW-148, SW-48, FM-236).

The details of projects completed in 12th Plan year-wise are depicted in the Table below:

In Doordarshan, the capability of the direct to home platform Free Dish had been increased from 59 to 104 of which eighty are already on air, and orders had been placed for implementation of Indian Conditional Access System (iCAS).

(DD sources told indiantelevision.com that these eighty were on MPEG-2 while the balance 24 will be on MPEG-4 which has been tested and the auction process to fill those slots has already been initiated.)

The Minister added that that apart from DD Kisan, 24-hour Doordarshan channels had been launched in Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan and Saptagiri from Vijaywada.

The technical facility for launch of new TV Channel DD Arun Prabha for the north east had been completed.

Earth stations had been set up at Indore, Rajkot, Vijayawada and Jalpaiguri and the Earth station at Leh, Chandigarh, Hisar, Panaji, and Port Blair (except RF equipment) had been modernized.

Other steps included:

High Definition Television (HDTV) Studios set up at Delhi & Mumbai; digitization of 39 Studios; commissioning of a permanent studio set up at Dehradun; Multichannel Automated Playback facility set up and installation of Multi Camera Studio Production facility in HDTV format in progress at Central Production Centre in Delhi; Media Asset Management for Archive system set up at Kolkata; HDTV Outside Broadcast (OB) Vans supplied at Delhi and Mumbai; and Six Digital Satellite News Gathering (DSNG) Vans deployed.

Referring to status of transmitters, he said 19 digital High Power Transmitters (Digital Video Broadcasting-and Generation Terrestrial) (DVB-T2) had been supplied and 16 digital HPTs commissioned; four HDTV transmitters supplied and installed; a HPT commissioned in Cannanore apart from a Very Low Power Transmitter (VLPT) at Joginder Nagar.  

Old ageing HPTs had been replaced by new 10 KW HPTs at 14 locations and 111 Automode Low Power Transmitters (LPTs) supplied and commissioned.