I&B Ministry
Prasar Bharati’s main role is of pubcaster, not revenue generator, says Rathore
NEW DELHI: Stressing that revenue generation is not the main objective of Prasar Bharati, the Parliament was today told that the pubcaster is generating its revenue through Internal Extra Budgetary Resources (IEBR) to meet its operating expenses.
Minister of state for information and broadcasting Rajyavardhan Rathore said in reply to a question that the government was providing 100 per cent salary support to Prasar Bharati, apart from plan grant for creation of capital assets and content development.
He said that Prasar Bharati’s primary mandate was to organise and conduct public broadcasting service with the intent to inform, educate and entertain the public and to ensure a balanced development of broadcasting on radio and television in the country.
Listing various achievements as an outcome of measures taken in recent years, he said the capability of the direct to home platform FreeDish had been increased from 59 to 104 TV channels of which 80 are already on air, and orders had been placed for implementation of Indian Conditional Access System (iCAS).
(DD sources told indiantelevision.com that these 80 were on MPEG-2 , while the remainder will be on MPEG-4 which has been tested and the auction process to fill those slots has already been initiated.)
Apart from DD Kisan, the minister added, that 24-hour Doordarshan channels had been launched in Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan and Saptagiri from Vijaywada.
The technical facility for launch of new TV Channel DD Arunprabha for the north east had been completed.
Earth stations had been set up at Indore, Rajkot, Vijayawada and Jalpaiguri and the earth station at Leh, Chandigarh, Hisar, Panaji, and Port Blair (except RF equipment) had been modernised.
Other steps included:
High Definition television (HDTV) studios set up at Delhi and Mumbai; digitisation of 39 studios; commissioning of a permanent studio set up at Dehradun; multichannel automated playback facility set up and installation of multi camera studio production facility in HDTV format in progress at Central Production Centre in Delhi; Media Asset Management for archive system set up at Kolkata; HDTV outside broadcast (OB) vans supplied at Delhi and Mumbai; and six Digital Satellite News Gathering (DSNG) vans deployed.
Referring to status of transmitters, he said 19 digital High Power Transmitters (Digital Video Broadcasting-and Generation Terrestrial) (DVB-T2) had been supplied and 16 digital HPTs commissioned; four HDTV transmitters supplied and installed; a HPT commissioned in Cannanore, apart from a Very Low Power Transmitter (VLPT) at Joginder Nagar.
Ageing HPTs had been replaced by new 10 KW HPTs at 14 locations and 111 auto-mode LPTs supplied & commissioned.
I&B Ministry
Government sets up AI governance group to steer policy
AIGEG to align ministries, assess jobs impact, guide AI deployment.
MUMBAI: If artificial intelligence is the engine, the government is now building the dashboard and making sure everyone reads from the same screen. The Centre has constituted a new inter-ministerial body to coordinate India’s approach to AI, formalising a key recommendation from its governance framework and the Economic Survey. The AI Governance and Economic Group (AIGEG), set up by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, will act as the central platform to align AI-related policy across ministries, regulators and departments, an attempt to bring coherence to what has so far been a fragmented and fast-evolving landscape.
The group will be chaired by union minister Ashwini Vaishnaw, with minister of state Jitin Prasada as vice chairperson. Its composition reflects both technological and economic priorities, bringing together the principal scientific adviser, the chief economic adviser, and the CEO of NITI Aayog, alongside key secretaries from telecommunications, economic affairs and science and technology. A representative from the National Security Council Secretariat is also part of the group, while the MeitY secretary will serve as member convenor.
At its core, AIGEG is designed to do two things: coordinate and anticipate. On the policy front, it will review existing regulatory mechanisms, issue guidance across sectors and ensure companies remain compliant with evolving legal frameworks. Beyond that, it will oversee national initiatives on AI governance, with a focus on enabling responsible innovation rather than merely regulating it.
The economic dimension is equally central. The group has been tasked with assessing how AI-driven automation could reshape jobs identifying which roles are most at risk, where those impacts may be geographically concentrated, and whether technology will augment or replace human labour. Based on these assessments, it will develop mitigation strategies and transition plans, signalling a more proactive stance on workforce disruption.
In parallel, AIGEG will work with industry stakeholders to chart a long-term roadmap for AI adoption, categorising use cases into “deploy”, “pilot” or “defer” buckets depending on readiness factors such as data availability, skill levels and regulatory clarity. The aim is to move from broad ambition to structured execution deciding not just what can be built, but what should be built now.
The group will function as the apex layer in India’s AI governance architecture, supported by a Technology and Policy Expert Committee that will track global developments, emerging risks and regulatory priorities. Together, the two bodies are expected to shape both the pace and direction of AI adoption in the country.
In a landscape where technology often outruns policy, the creation of AIGEG signals an attempt to close that gap ensuring that India’s AI journey is not just rapid, but also coordinated, accountable and economically grounded.
