The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA) chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday, January 4 approved the Broadcasting Infrastructure and Network Development (BIND) scheme at a cost of Rs 2,539.61 crore for the infrastructure development of Prasar Bharati. The BIND scheme proposal was sent by the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting for All India Radio (AIR) and Doordarshan (DD).
The BIND scheme is the vehicle for providing financial support to Prasar Bharati for expenses related to expanding and upgrading its broadcasting infrastructure, content development, and civil work related to the organisation.
The scheme will enable the public broadcaster to undertake major upgradation of its facilities with better infrastructure which will widen its reach, including in the LWE, border and strategic areas and provide high-quality content to the viewers.
Another priority area of the scheme is the development of high-quality content for both domestic and international audiences and ensuring the availability of diverse content to viewers by improving the capacity of the DTH platform to accommodate more channels. The purchase of OB vans and a digital boost for DD and AIR Studios to make them HD-ready will also be done as part of the project.
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 percent by geographical area and 80 percent by population — up from 59 percent and 68 percent, respectively.
The scheme also envisages free distribution of over eight lakh DD Free Dish STBs to people living in remote, tribal, LWE, and border areas.
In addition to enhancing the scope of public broadcasting, the project for modernisation and augmentation of the broadcast infrastructure also has the potential to generate indirect employment by way of manufacturing and services related to the supply and installation of broadcast equipment.
Content generation and content innovation for AIR and DD have the potential of indirect employment of persons with varied experience in different media fields in the content production sector, including TV/Radio production, transmission, and associated media-related services.
Further, the project for expansion of the reach of DD Free Dish is expected to generate employment opportunities in the manufacturing of the associated DTH boxes.
(Edited by : Shoma Bhattacharjee)
