Srinagar, Jun 22: Union Minister for Information and Broadcasting Prakash Javadekar Saturday said India will soon become the largest country in the world where every household has a television set.
“There is a new dream that every household will have a TV in the coming years. There are 25 crore households in India and 18 crore have a TV set. There are still seven crore households without a TV,” Javadekar, who is also Union Minister for Environment, Forest and Climate Change, said here while addressing a function to launch distribution of free Dish TV set-top boxes in Kashmir, besides unveiling the signature tune of Doordarshan’s satellite channel for Jammu and Kashmir — DD Kashir — composed by Rahul Sharma “which resonates with the cultural ethos of the state”.
“Today, we are making a small beginning in which we are giving set-top boxes of free Dish TV for people living in far flung areas and to poor people. However, as soon as our economy develops people will buy a TV as soon as they are able to address the six basic needs of food, clothing, shelter, healthcare, education and livelihood,” the minister said.
He said in near future, India will be the largest nation with TV in every household. “This is my belief.”
Javdekar said television has seen massive expansion over the past three decades with mushrooming of channels in late 1990s while Doordarshan being the only channel in 1970s.
“Today we have more than 700 TV channels on various fields. There was revolution in this field after private channels come up in 1992-93,” he said.
The minister gave credit for the spread of TV across the country to the introduction of cable TV.
“The cable connected one home to another, then one locality to the next, and it ended up connecting the people as well. Even today, there are nine crore households where cable TV is watched,” he said.
He said the cable spread was fast and due to the fact that there was no interference of the government in it.
“People used to say, and which to an extent is true, that cable spread and it became a cable revolution not despite government but because the government was not there,” he added.
The minister expressed happiness that nearly nine crore people were accessing TV content through DTH services.
“There are five to six major operators and they put together have 5.5 crore connections. The biggest DTH operator in the country is Doordarshan with 3.5 crore DTH connections where we are giving free Dish,” he said.
On the occasion, Dr Jitendra Singh, Minister of State (Independent Charge), Ministry of Development of North East Region; MoS Prime Minister’s Office told the gathering that free DTH connections will help in dissemination of information in border areas which are not well connected by roads or other communication means.
“People in border areas will get some relief. They will get an avenue of entertainment and the information that should reach them,” Singh said.
Singh also launched the Dogri news bulletin which will be aired at 6:15 pm everyday on DD Kashir.
The Lok Sabha MP from Udhampur said the Dogri bulletin on DD Kashir satellite channel was a long-pending demand of people in Jammu.
“Steps have been taken for promotion of Kashmiri language from time to time but similar steps for Dogri were delayed. Both Kashmiri and Dogri are rich but underrated languages,” he said.
Singh also stressed on developing and promoting regional languages. He stressed that in order to develop any language, two things are important – the pride felt in speaking that language and the literature of that language.
Singh said that with the launch of Dogri news bulletin on satellite medium, Dogri language will reach people across the world. He said that the composite culture and literature of J&K will also get a boost as Kashmiri, Dogri and Ladakhi languages will be available on the same channel.
K Vijay Kumar and K Skandan, Advisors to Governor, Amit Khare, Secretary, Information and Broadcasting, B V R Subrahmanyam, Chief Secretary; GOC 15 Corps Lt Gen KJS Dhillon, Dr. A. Surya Prakash, Chairman Prasar Bharati were present among others on the occasion.
Supriya Sahu, Director General Doordarshan delivered the welcome address. The event commenced with the lighting of the lamp by the dignitaries.
A cultural dance performance along with a live Muppet show featuring popular characters from a children show Galli Galli Sim Sim telecast on DD Kashir were presented on the occasion.
A Short film comprising of clips from archives showcasing the journey of DD Kashir and a video clip on Dogri New Bulletin were also screened for the audience. The event also witnessed the presence of large number of school students.
