In news– The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs approved the proposal of the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting regarding Central Sector Scheme BIND at a cost of ₹2,539.61 crore.
About the BIND scheme-
- Its objective is infrastructure development of Prasar Bharati i.e. All India Radio (AIR) and Doordarshan (DD).
- The scheme is the vehicle for providing financial support to Prasar Bharati for expenses related to expansion and upgradation of its broadcasting infrastructure, content development and civil work related to the organization.
- At present, Doordarshan operates 36 TV channels including 28 regional channels and All India Radio operates more than 500 broadcasting centres.
- The Scheme will increase coverage of AIR FM transmitters in the country to 66% by geographical area and 80% by population up from 59% and 68% respectively.
- The Scheme also envisages free distribution of over 8 lakh DD Free Dish STBs to people living in remote, tribal, LWE and border areas.
- Another major priority area of the scheme is the development of high-quality content for both domestic and international audience and ensuring availability of diverse content to the viewers by upgradation of capacity of DTH platform to accommodate more channels.
All India Radio (AIR)-
- All India Radio India’s Public Service Broadcaster, the Radio vertical of Prasar Bharati has been serving to inform, educate and entertain its audiences since its inception, living up to its motto – ‘Bahujan Hitaya : Bahujan Sukhaya’. One of the largest broadcasting organisations in the world in terms of the number of languages of broadcast and the spectrum of socio-economic and cultural diversity it serves, AIR’s home service comprises of 470 Broadcasting centres located across the country, covering nearly 92% of the country’s area and 99.19 % of the total population. Terrestrially, AIR originates programming in 23 languages and 179 dialects.
- The Directorate General, All India Radio functions under Prasar Bharati. Director General is the Head of the Department and is responsible for the overall administration and supervision of the entire AIR network.
About Doordarshan News and DD India (DD News and DD India)
- DD News and DD India are two news channels of Prasar Bharati, India’s Public Service Broadcaster.
- These National News Channels are operational on a 24×7 basis to bring to the people of the country and viewers abroad, news and current affairs programmes in English and Hindi.
- These channels are successfully discharging their responsibilities to give balanced, fair, accurate and authentic news without sensationalizing as well as by carrying different shades of opinion.
- DD News was launched as a separate channel on 3 November, 2003. Its satellite footprint is available across the country.
- DD News is currently producing news content in Hindi, Sanskrit and Sign languages.
- Channel DD India is also in the process of being transformed into a News and Current Affairs channel to showcase India at the global level.
- The channel migrated to High Definition Platform in the month of October 2020, Aiming for the transformation of DD News into National Hindi News channel and DD India into complete English Global News channel various new initiatives have been taken in the past two years.
- The DD India channel has now been recognized by BARCas an English News Channel and is constantly competing neck and neck with other top private English News channel.
Source: PIB
