Broadcast regulator Telecom Regulatory Authority of India?s (Trai) recommendation on whether to permit the Centre, state governments and their organs ? urban and rural local bodies, publicly funded bodies and political and religious entities ? to enter into broadcasting activities such as television or radio broadcast channels (including an FM channel) will be unveiled on Wednesday.
Trai will recommend whether, with regard to entry 31 in List I (Union List) of the Seventh Schedule to the Constitution of India (Posts and telegraphs, telephones, wireless, broadcasting and other like forms of communication), it would be in the interest of broadcasting sector and the public at large, to permit such entities into broadcasting. Trai will also take a call on the type of broadcasting activities they should be allowed to carry out. Trai will also have to specify the amendments that have to be incorporated in the Broadcasting Bill, 1997 if such entities are given permission to enter the arena of broadcasting.
If religious bodies are permitted to enter into broadcasting activities, Trai will spell out the safeguards to be stipulated to ensure that the such a licence once granted is not misused. Also the question of defining such ?religious bodies? has to be clearly specified. A clarification on whether such religious bodies should be inthe form of a trust or a society or a company under section 25 of the Companies Act, 1956 would also be given by Trai.
Trai will also take a call on whether the same entities should be allowed to enter and float into distribution business such as cable, DTH, HITS among others. In case such bodies are to be given permission to enter into the business of distribution of broadcast channels, what are the amendments, which would be required in the Cable Television Networks (Regulation) Act, 1995.The sector regulator will also lay down how such steps would impact and alter the center-state relations and state-state relations.
Stakeholders like media houses and MSO Alliance have largely opposed government?s entry into broadcasting activities saying it undermines the principle of independent and free media. ?No media organization which is owned and controlled by the government or a political party controlling a panchayat or municipal body can be free and independent,? says ETV Network.
According to Zee group ?Media has a special role which may sometimes go even against the establishment, Government as well as the State organs. It is also for such reasons that the media regulators have been kept outside the purview of the direct administrative control of the government in almost all countries.?