Union Minister of Information and Broadcasting, and Youth Affairs and Sports Anurag Singh Thakur on Monday launched the Broadcast Seva Portal, as part of the “ease–of–doing business” initiative for the broadcasting sector.
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It is an online portal solution for speedy filing and processing of applications by the broadcasters for various kinds of licences, permissions, registrations and other associated requirements.
Mr. Thakur said the Central government was harnessing technology to bring transparency in the system and make it more accountable. The portal would reduce the turnaround time of applications and help the applicants track the progress made. It would minimise human interface that was earlier required and add to the capacity building of the Ministry.
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The Minister said the 360–degree digital solution would facilitate the stakeholders in seeking permissions, applying for registration, tracking applications, calculating fees and executing payments. It would provide its services under the wider umbrella efforts of Digital India to all the stakeholders, including private satellite TV channels, teleport operators, multi–system operators, community and private radio channels, etc.
“The portal is a giant leap forward in realising Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s mantra of ‘minimum government, maximum governance’ as this simple and user–friendly web portal provides a broadcaster an end–to–end solution with just a click of the mouse. It will boost the business environment and empower the entire broadcast sector by directly benefiting more than 900 satellite TV channels, 70 teleport operators, 1,700 multi–service operators, 350 community radio stations (CRS), 380 private FM channels and others.”
Soon the portal would be integrated with the National Single Window System. The Ministry was open to further improvements that the industry might feel were required, he said.
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Several improvements
I&B Secretary Apurva Chandra said the portal had several improvements over the previous version. It would bring transparency, accountability and responsiveness in the ecosystem and all information would be available on a single dashboard.
The services and features of the portal include end–to–end processing, integration with payment system, integration with e–office and stakeholder Ministries, analytics, reporting and management information system, integrated helpdesk, application forms and status tracking, downloading letters/orders from the portal itself and SMS/e–mail alerts to stakeholders.
The broadcasters present at the event welcomed the launch of the portal.