The proposed Bill, scheduled to be tabled during the Monsoon Session, is unlikely to be introduced even in Winter Session.
NEW DELHI: It looks like a long-haul for the Broadcasting Services Regulation Bill 2006, with no landing in sight.
The proposed Bill, which was scheduled to be tabled during the Monsoon Session, is now unlikely to be introduced even during the Winter Session of Parliament.
The draft legislation has to go through many rounds of consultation with the industry before it is finalised.
The first formal round of consultation took place here on Monday evening between media representatives and information & broadcasting minister P R Dasmunsi along with senior ministry officials.
After the meeting, I&B secretary S K Arora said that the draft broadcasting Bill, which has been put up on the ministry website, is the 19th version of the draft Bill.
However, when asked whether the Bill may have to be re-written completely — it has come under severe attack from the industry for its draconian clauses — Arora said, “I don’t think so”.
On whether the Bill would be introduced during the Winter Session of Parliament, the I&B secretary only said, “the entire process (getting industry response and then inter-ministerial consultation) takes time”. He did not give any timeframe as to when the bill could be tabled.
The industry and people in general have been given one month (up to September 11) to react to the draft Bill. Thereafter, the inter-ministerial consultation process will follow before finalising the draft. The draft Bill will then be sent to the Cabinet and tabled in Parliament.
Meanwhile, the government has clarified that, although the proposed Bill gives powers to authorized officers (district and sub-divisional magistrates or commissioners of police) to inspect, search and seize equipment of service providers, this power is limited to only against those who commit a criminal offence.
The draft Bill lists criminal offence as running an unlicensed broadcasting service or telecast an unregistered channel. Even in these cases, the authorised officers will file cases before regular courts with criminal jurisdiction.
The industry’s concerns over the proposed Bill include cross-holding restrictions in the sector, cap on the number of channels that a broadcaster can have, setting up of the government-appointed broadcasting regulator, and search & seizure clauses, according to a representative of the Indian Broadcasting Foundation (IBF).
The government has assured the industry that all these concerns will be taken into account. “We will do our homework based on these inputs,” Arora said.
Asked why the government had not consulted the industry earlier, the I&B secretary cited the urgent need for a legislative sanction to broadcasting guidelines on various regulatory aspects such as television channels’ uplinking/ downlinking, private FM radio and community radio, direct-to-home (DTH) etc.
But when the media response to the whole issue came up, the government decided to opt for a consultation process, he admitted.
Just a few days ago, the I&B ministry put up the draft Bill on its website for consultation with the industry. Interestingly, the draft Bill has also been revised to some extent.
Earlier, the government had prepared a cabinet note on the proposed broadcasting Bill, and wanted to table it during the current Parliament session.
However, many of the ‘draconian’ clauses contained in the proposed Bill came under attack from the industry.
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