Rs 100 cr to strengthen TV transmitters along Pak, China borders

The government seems to have woken up to this lacunae at last, as it has decided to spend Rs 100 crore this year to augment the hardware in the high-power, medium-power and low-power transmitters along the Indian borders with the two countries.

And if Prasar Bharati implements a suggestion from the government, the manpower required for the upkeep of the strengthened transmitters might be outsourced from among the locally-available retired army and police personnel with knowledge of technology.

The government has woken up, though belatedly, to the fact that channels from across the border often beam propagandist programming into Indian areas while in many areas along the border, public broadcaster DD’s signals are so weak that they are not available even within Indian areas.

“It’s a shame that our channels cannot be seen there, while theirs are easily seen here. Our channels get jammed if their signals in the same frequencies are more powerful,” Information and Broadcasting Minister Ambika Soni said.

She said the government had decided to spend Rs 100 crore this year to augment the transmission hardware along the border areas.

The hardware augmentation would be carried out in transmitters lined up along the border with Pakistan from Jammu & Kashmir to Gujarat and the border with China along Arunachal Pradesh, she indicated.