Chief Minister Oommen Chandy has said an expert committee will be formed to study the proposal of setting up a media city in Kochi.
Mr. Chandy, who opened a media centre at the Ernakulam Collectorate on Sunday, said the media city would be modelled on the Dubai Media City. Apart from modern facilities for media houses, it would have institutions for journalism courses and training.
Mr. Chandy said the expert committee would be formed shortly and the government would take a decision after studying its report.
K.C. Joseph, Information and Rural Development Minister, said the work on the media city would begin within the current financial year. Though it would be modelled on Dubai's media city, it would be tailor-made for Kerala's needs and would be against the backdrop of the rapid advances in audio-visual and other media technologies.
Mr. Joseph also said that media centres would be opened in all district headquarters in a phased manner.
Mr. Joseph said his department planned to launch a television channel. This was to take to the people, information regarding the various welfare programmes being implemented by the government. He noted that the government has implemented a large number of new welfare programmes, but the people were largely unaware of these and hence they were not able to take advantage of these programmes. The channel would also be useful to get people's feedback on government programmes.
