I&B Ministry expands outreach

The Ministry of Information & Broadcasting has undertaken key initiatives to generate awareness of Government programmes and policies in different sectors. The ministry’s initiatives are meant to firm up effective reach of messaging to the people.

A new Kisan TV channel, dedicated to the agricultural sector, has been started. In keeping with the government decision, the 3rd and 4th phases of cable TV digitisation are to be completed by December 2015 and December 2016 respectively. The Cabinet has also approved e-auctioning of the first batch of Phase-III FM channels, consisting of 135 channels in the 69 cities already covered under Phase-II. It has also approved migration (renewal) of private FM licenses from Phase-II to Phase-III on payment of migration fee as per TRAI recommendations. The Ministry has planned a National Film Heritage Mission (NFHM) to restore, digitise and archive films. The project would involve collection of film prints for assessment of their residual life; preventive conservation of 1.32 lakh reels; picture and sound restoration of 1,145 films and 1,108 short films; digitisation of 1,200 feature films and 1,660 short films; and construction of archival facilities.

For the first time, a three-day North East Film Festival was held in Delhi, at the Siri Fort Complex, which concluded on 24August 2014.