THE MINISTER OF STATE IN THE MINISTRY OF INFORMATION AND BROADCASTING [COL RAJYAVARDHAN RATHORE (Retd.)]
(a) Prasar Bharati has informed that with inflation and rising costs of TV channels, DD has also experienced gradual increase in operational costs. In addition, the implementation of various recommendations of 6th Central Pay Commission has led to increase in administrative and staff related expenses.
The details of expenditure incurred by Doordarshan during the last three years and the current financial year are as under:-
<pre>
(Rs. in Crore)
Category 2012-13 2013-14 2014-15 2015-16
(upto Oct. 2015)
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Salary and other operating expenses (Revenue Non-Plan) 1614.09 1705.25 1899.87 1118.70
Grant-in-Aid Content Development (Revenue Plan) 61.02 42.84 32.68 19.80
Technical Infrastructure and Modernisation (Capital Plan) 208.08 197.75 200.43 48.94
Total 1883.19 1945.84 2132.98 1187.44
Since Prasar Bharati is a Public Service Broadcaster, its functioning cannot be guided purely by commercial motives. However, Prasar Bharati is adopting an aggressive marketing strategy to increase the revenue receipts besides putting into the best use its spare infrastructure available with the field formations across the country. The details of gross revenue earned during the last three years and the current year is as under:-
<pre>
Financial Year Gross Revenue
(Rs. in Crores)
2012-13 1298.16
2013-14 1295.96
2014-15 1124.43
2015-16 604.00
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(b) Ministry of Information and Broadcasting provides financial support to Prasar Bharati under Plan and Non Plan heads, in the form of Grants-in-aid. In the current financial year (2015-16), an amount of Rs.605.03 crore has been allocated to Prasar Bharati under Plan Head and Rs.2342.12 crore has been allocated under Non-Plan.
The Ministry has also allocated vide its Office Memorandum dated 27th August 2015 a sum of Rs.11116.79 crore [Rs.11116.76 crore under Revenue Section and Rs.0.02 crore as Token Supplementary and Rs.0.01 crore as Token Supplementary under Capital Section as first batch of supplementary grant 2015-16] to Prasar Bharati subsequent to the approval of Ministry of Finance for the following:-
(i) Conversion of a sum of Rs. 5684.34 crore towards Loan-in-Perpetuity and Capital Loan into Grants-in-Aid for the period 01.04.2000 to 31.03.2010.
(ii) Waiver of an amount of Rs. 4082.88 crore towards interest on Loan-in-Perpetuity, interest on Capital Loan and Penal Interests for the period 01.04.2000 to 31.03.2010.
(iii) Waiver of a sum of Rs. 1349.54 crore towards accumulated arears of Space Segment and Spectrum Charges accrued to Prasar Bharati upto 31.03.2011.
(c) to (e): Prasar Bharati is a member of Broadcast Audience Research Council (BARC) which is an industry body to design, commission, supervise and own an accurate, reliable and timely television audience measurement system for India. Prasar Bharati collects viewership data from BARC. Comparative viewership of various prime time channels vis-a-vis National Channels in different categories as per Broadcast Audience Research Council (BARC) data is placed at Annexure-A.
As informed by Prasar Bharati, it is a constant endeavor of Doordarshan to improve upon its programmes by reviewing the content and quality from time to time with the view to sustain the interest of the viewers. Doordarshan procures content through various notified schemes such as Self Finance Commissioning (SFC), Revenue Sharing Mode (RSM) for producers/simulcast, Advertisement Funded Programme (AFP). The Revenue Sharing Scheme (Producers/Simulcast) also allows Doordarshan to collaborate with some private channels for sourcing some high quality software in the simulcast mode, on favorable terms.
The Prasar Bharati Board has decided to invite good external programmes to be telecast on all its channel, in different phases, through the sponsored mode.
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