Govt says no to FDI hike in media without a level-playing field

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The government wants to ensure that there is a level-playing field for all the media houses, especially the smaller ones, before it raises the foreign direct investment (FDI) limit, currently at 26%.

Information and broadcasting minister Priya Ranjan Dasmunshi said there is pressure from large media houses to increase the FDI limit but, “without a level-playing field it will benefit only a few and not the smaller ones.”

He said that increasing FDI limit in media is not a matter for the I&B ministry but of a government policy. The government is holding discussions with various stake- holders and would take decision after it is convinced that a larger FDI limit would not adversely affect the smaller media houses.

Dasmunshi said that a prominent national television channel was evading taxes worth thousands of crores of rupees by downlinking the feed to Hong Kong and then transmitting it back to India. “The government would shortly take care of this,” Dasmunshi said.

He said that the present mechanism for television rating point (TRP) was not transparent and it did not take into

account the rural viewer-ship. For this channels are improperly rated.