NEW DELHI: The Ministry of Information and Broadcasting (I&B) has received less number of requisitions for complimentary set-top boxes of Doordarshan (DD) Free Dish from some states including Jharkhand and Kerala, while it had not got a single request from West Bengal. The ministry may allocate the leftover DTH (direct-to-home) devices to other states.
The Centre, in January, announced that it would provide more than 8 lakh DD Free Dish set-top boxes to people in remote, tribal, Left Wing Extremism affected, and border areas under its Broadcast Infrastructure Network Development scheme, envisaged with an outlay of Rs 2,539.61 crore for modernisation and growth of Air India Radio and DD.
Subsequently, a dedicated portal was developed and the district collectors in the targeted regions were assigned the task to propose the name of the individuals eligible under the scheme. DD Free Dish is the only Free-to-Air DTH service provided by Doordarshan. The service is owned and operated by public service broadcaster Prasar Bharati. It was launched in December 2004.
The officials in the know of the matter said that the list to provide set-top boxes is ready and supply of the devices may begin soon. “We have received the names. However, some states didn’t respond suitably. We have got fewer requests from states such as Kerala and Jharkhand, but there was no single demand from West Bengal. The Free Dish allocation is to be done according to the population of the districts. We will give the remaining boxes to other states,” said officials.
The Broadcast Infrastructure Network Development scheme is to enable Prasar Bharti to undertake a major upgradation of its facilities with better infrastructure, which will widen its reach, including in the Naxal-affected, border and strategic areas and provide high quality content to the viewers. Earlier, Prasar Bharati CEO Gaurav Dwivedi told this newspaper that as part of a major upgradation and expansion scheme, the broadcaster had planned to augment the capacity of its DD Free Dish from the existing 166 to 250 channels.
Widening reach