HYDERABAD: The 13-member Group of Ministers (GoM), headed by Home Minister Shivraj Patil, will meet in New Delhi on April 18 to take decisions on how to take Prasar Bharati forward, including steps to financially strengthen the organisation.

K.S. Sarma, CEO of Prasar Bharati, told a press conference here on Saturday that the Government that was holding assets belonging to the organisation, including land, proposed to entrust their control to it. This would enable the Prasar Bharati to acquire the latest technology and equipment.

On Friday, he had submitted some proposals to the Planning Commission to be forwarded to the GoM. He said the GoM meeting would also look into various demands of employees such as salary hike and promotions.

Mr. Sarma said the Prasar Bharati's revenue target for 2006-07 had been fixed at Rs.1,500 crore, with Doordarshan contributing Rs. 1,100 crore and All India Radio Rs. 400 crore. The revenue last year was Rs. 1,238 crore, of which live telecast of cricket matches yielded Rs. 200 crore. On an average, the organisation was earning Rs. 100 crore a year from cricket telecasts.

Highest revenue from DTH

He said one of the higher revenue sources for Doordarshan was the Direct to Home (DTH) TV service that has 19 channels covering eight million sets with four crore viewership, 80 per cent of which was in rural areas. So far the service was being utilised free of cost by private channels. The organisation had written to the channels asking them to pay Rs.1 crore each from June 1.

65 channels express intent

He said 65 private channels had written to Doordarshan with an intent to come on the DTH platform.

These included a German public broadcaster and Al Jazeera, several spiritual channels, SS Music and Jaya TV. From May 30, the DTH channels would go up from 33 to 51 and to 100 by December 6.

Doordarshan, he said, was thinking of launching scrolling service, an interactive voice response system (IVRS) for the benefit of people and acquiring some Hollywood films this year.

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