Rural television viewers who want more than the half-an-hour of Krishi Darshan daily, there is good news. It may soon be beamed 24×7.
The rural development ministry has decided to launch a 24-hour channel for India’s large rural population to make them “adequately aware” of the government’s umpteen schemes.
Krishi Darshan would be the model — the proposed channel’s programmes would deal with agriculture, land, water and sanitation. But “it will have interesting programmes such as reality and quiz shows, music and other performances. But every programme will have a rural touch”, said a ministry official.
So say, after a programme on how to preserve seeds, the viewer would also get to watch a reality show in which panchayats across the country would compete to highlight development in their areas and vie for a jackpot.
“The new channel will deal with all problems related to rural India and will also highlight the government’s attempts to make rural life better,” the official said, before quickly adding that the attempt should not be seen as a public relations exercise. “No, it won’t be an extension of PIB (Press Information Bureau) advertisements. We want the channel to be able to bring the rural masses and the government closer.”
The brainwave for the channel is believed to be rural development minister C.P. Joshi’s. He had told a meeting recently that the Centre’s flagship programmes — the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, Swarnjayanti Gram Swarojgar Yojana, Indira Awaas Yojana, to name a few — were not getting the publicity they deserved.
“Lack of information has not allowed the rural people to avail themselves of the facilities provided by many centrally-sponsored programmes worth Rs 70,000 crore,” he had said.
The official said the rural development ministry had held two rounds of talks with the information and broadcasting ministry. “I&B minister Ambika Soni is quite enthusiastic about the idea and has assured all possible help to launch the channel as soon as possible,” the official said.
Soni’s ministry wants to transform one of the existing 17 Doordarshan channels into the rural channel, it is understood.
Asked about the expenses, the official did not give figures but said the rural development ministry would provide the financial requirement while I&B would handle the production.
Asked about its commercial viability, the official said that would not be a problem as the ministry had enough funds to support the channel.