Litigation-riven public broadcaster Prasar Bharati has decided to set up a team to negotiate out-of-court settlements in the Rs. 400 crore worth arbitration issues it is involved in.
Calling this a “decision of far reaching consequences”, the Prasar Bharati Board on Monday decided that a “special high-level negotiating empowered team” would take this up on a priority basis.
The Board also approved the working plan to expand Doordarshan’s direct-to-home (DTH) platform to 200 channels by the end of the year. The detailed proposal for an e-auction of channels on the Doordarshan Direct DTH platform has also been cleared, and a statement from Board chairperson Mrinal Pande said that efforts would be made to make it operational within a month.
In other decisions, the Board approved guidelines for the procurement of Hindi feature films for Doordarshan and amended the guidelines for commissioned programming. It decided to allow cross-channel advertising from other broadcasters and DTH operators on Doordarshan channels.
