Amid reports in a section of the media that the Government was reconsidering its policy that disallows news programmes on private FM channels, Union Information & Broadcasting Ministry Secretary Bimal Julka on Tuesday said no decision as such had been taken as yet.
According to Mr. Julka, the policy was being looked at in the wake of the Supreme Court’s notice to the Centre on a public interest writ petition challenging the validity of the provisions of the Policy Guidelines and the Grant of Permission Agreements framed by the Centre which prohibit private FM radio and community radio stations from broadcasting their own news and current affairs programmes on the same footing as private television and print media.
"We are in discussion with all the stake-holders, but no decision has been taken as yet," Mr. Julka told The Hindu. The Supreme Court had issued notice on October 17, 2013, on a petition filed by Common Cause.
Asked whether the Union Government had any proposal to allow private radio stations to broadcast news and current affairs programmes, Union Minister of State for Information & Broadcasting Manish Tewari had told the Lok Sabha last month that "there is no such proposal under consideration" of the Government. This was nearly two months after the Supreme Court issued notice to the Government.
Since FM broadcasting opened in India over a decade ago, successive governments – first of the Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance and then of the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance – have been wary of allowing news on this platform on the premise that there is no way to monitor them.
In the yet-to-roll-out Phase-III of FM Broadcasting, the Government has said that FM channels would be allowed to carry news bulletins of All India Radio in an unaltered format besides current affairs of a local nature. Currently, 242 FM channels operate across 87 cities of the country.