Rajya Sabha, Lok Sabha TV merged into Sansad TV

Capping deliberations of over two years, Lok Sabha TV and Rajya Sabha TV have been merged into a single entity 'Sansad TV' and appointed former IAS officer Ravi Capoor as its first Chief Executive Officer (CEO).

Officials said on Tuesday that this does not mean any of the channels will be shut down. Both the channels will be on air throughout and proceedings of the Houses would be telecast separately under the new brand name.

When Parliament is not in session and beyond the working hours of Parliament, both the variants will telecast common content to a large extent with the LSTV telecasting programmes in Hindi and RSTV in English. The new variants are likely to be named Sansad 1 and Sansad 2.

With finances in mind, officials said, it was decided not to go for a bilingual channel and focus on one language by one channel.

LSTV was launched in 2006 by the then Speaker Somnath Chatterjee, while RSTV came into being in 2011.

Capoor was on Monday appointed the CEO after Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla and Rajya Sabha Chairman M Venkaiah Naidu took a joint decision to merge the LSTV and the RSTV. Appointed for one year, he has been assigned to work out the modalities of the merger, which includes integration of assets and manpower.

He will also look into whether to terminate the contracts of some employees as part of rationalisation of manpower. At present, RSTV has around 250 personnel and LSTV around 100.

The merger of both the channels come after a report by a committee headed by former Prasar Bharati Chairman Surya Prakash in February 2020. The committee, which also included Rajya Sabha Secretariat A Rao and Lok Sabha Secretariat Ganpati Bhatt, was formed in November 2019 following a discussion between the Lok Sabha Speaker and the Rajya Sabha Chairman.

The committee under Prakash had concluded that there is a need for two separate platforms to ensure live telecast of the proceedings of the Houses and recommended an integrated channel 'Sansad TV' with two variants.

"Two language variants would enable better branding and increased viewership by overcoming the shortcomings associated with the present bilingual telecast format of both the channels," the committee had said.

The Committee also strongly recommended effective utilisation of the available resources like relocating the RSTV from the Talkatora Stadium Annexe, for which huge rent is being paid at present, to the space available with LSTV in Parliament House and at the Mahadev Road bungalow.