NEW DELHI: Taking umbrage at the fact that utilisation of budgetary allocation has not been good, a Parliamentary Committee has said the Information and Broadcasting Ministry failed to take effective steps for approval of the schemes at the beginning of the financial year 2012-13 which led to surrender of funds due to restrictions imposed by the midway, that is, in October 2012 to the Finance Ministry.

The Parliamentary Standing Committee on Information Technology said against the proposed sum of Rs 32.8 billion, the Ministry was allocated an amount of Rs 9.05 billion during the year 2012-13. This sum was further reduced to Rs 6.76 billion at the stage of revised estimates (RE), out of which the actual expenditure was to the tune of Rs 6.11 billion, that is 90.4 per cent of the RE allocation.

The Committee noted that for 2013-14, the I and B Ministry has been allocated a total amount of Rs 30.36 billion which includes Rs 9.05 billion as Plan outlay and Rs 21.31 billion as non-plan outlay.

The Committee was unhappy that even after overall reduction in allocation of funds in 2012-13, the same were not utilised fully. The Committee said it was not satisfied with the reasons advanced by the Ministry for under-utilisation of funds during 2012-13. These reasons are delay in approval of the schemes resulting in surrender of funds, and the guidelines issued by the Finance Ministry restricting expenditure to 33 per cent of the Budgetary Estimate in the last quarter and not more than 15 per cent of the BE in the last month, scheme wise, subject to RE ceiling.

The Committee noted, however, that the Ministry has initiated some steps to effectively utilise the funds during the year 2013-14 which include streamlining of the process of appraisal/approval of the schemes and obtain the clearances according to the revised/projected deadline during the year 2013-14 itself so that the targets set under various schemes are not shifted/deferred further.

The Committee also urged the Ministry to vigorously pursue the matter with the Planning Commission and the Finance Ministry to obtain clearances for 26 schemes initiated during the year 2013-14.
It said its concerns in this regard should also be communicated to both the Finance Ministry and the Planning Commission and Committee be apprised of the action taken in the matter.

It noted that the position of utilisation of funds during 2011-12 was better as out of Rs 7.87 billion allocated at RE stage, the actual expenditure was Rs 7.63 billion.

The Committee noted that for the Twelfth Five Year Plan (2012-17), the Ministry had proposed a total plan outlay of Rs 217.31 billion (including Internal and Extra Budgetary Resources - IEBR - of Rs 50 billion from Prasar Bharati) against which the approved outlay is Rs 85.83 billion (including IEBR of Rs 10 billion from Prasar Bharati).

NEW DELHI: Action has been initiated ten times against eight foreign television channels in 2011 and 2012 for violation of the Programme and Advertising Codes under the Cable Television Network (Regulation) Act, 1995 and the rules framed thereunder.

Information and Broadcasting minister Manish Tewari told Parliament however that the Act does not provide for pre-censorship of the programmes and advertisements.

While FTV faced closure for ten days from 28 March this year, the AXN channel was taken off for one day. The other channels which were issued advisories or warnings included Sony Pix, Sony, TLC, and Zee Trends.

Sony Entertainment Television (SET) apologised for telecasting the promos of an adult film and the matter was closed, the violation by TCM TV for showing an adult film without displaying the Censor Certificate is under consideration. Star Cricket was pulled up for airing ad of a liquor brand.

An Electronic Media Monitoring Centre (EMMC) has been set up to monitor the content of private TV channels. The Ministry also has an Inter-Ministerial Committee (IMC) to consider the cases of violation of these codes and recommend appropriate course of action.

The Press Council of India (PCI) formed ?Norms of Journalistic Conduct? for adherence by the print media and the Council takes cognizance of the contents in print media which are violative of the Norms. However, PCI does not have any information in regard to violation of the Norms by foreign media companies.