NEW DELHI: The grants-in-aid for Prasar Bharati has been raised from the revised estimates of Rs 2089.56 crore in 2013-14 to Rs 2421.58, even as there is no separate investment by the Government in the pubcaster for the second year in a row.
Interestingly, the grants-in-aid for Prasar Bharati had been raised in the interim budget (for four months) by the previous government to Rs 2331.58 crore which remains the same and the only difference is in the addition of Rs 90 crore for the Kisan TV.
In the budget for 2014-15 presented in Parliament, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley has made a provision of Rs 200 crore from Internal and Extra-budgetary resources for Prasar Bharati and the total plan outlay for broadcasting is Rs 731.58 crore.
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The total budget of the Information and Broadcasting Ministry has been raised to Rs 3316 crore for 2014-15 against the revised budget of Rs 2855.03 crore (against the initial allocation of Rs 3035.65 crore) for the year 2013-14.
The allocation for Press Information Services which includes grants to the Press Council of India has been marginally increased to Rs 65.44 crore from last year’s revised estimates of Rs 57.56 crore to meet the expenses for the Press Information Bureau, the Press Council of India, and to the Press Trust of India for running the non-aligned countries news pool.
The allocation to the Electronic Media Monitoring Centre has been increased substantially to Rs 13.75 crore from the revised estimates of Rs 7.17 crore in 2013-14. The EMMC was set up for monitoring television and radio channels for violation of programme and advertising codes.
The allocation for advertising and visual publicity has been lowered to Rs 230.37 crore against the revised estimates of Rs 241.6 crore and budget allocation of Rs 239.06 crore for 2013-14, covering expenditure incurred by the Directorate of Advertising and Visual Publicity for publicity campaigns through advertising and other printed materials, as well as through radio, television, exhibitions and other outdoor campaigns. The allocation is thus just Rs three crore more than that made by Chidambaram.
The allocation for research and training in mass communication has been doubled to Rs 33.54 crore (as proposed in the interim budget) as against the revised estimates of 15.91 crore and the budgetary allocation of Rs 17.85 crore for 2013-14. This covers the Indian Institute of Mass Communication and the Research and Reference Division of the I and B Ministry which collects and collates basic information on subjects of media interest for providing assistance to the Ministry and to its media units, Indian missions overseas, and newspapers and news agencies.
