NEW DELHI: All television channels have been requested by the government to assign greater emphasis to programmes for disabled persons and to include the facility of providing captions in their programmes for the hearing disabled and audio support for programs for the visually disabled.

In a notice put up on its website late in the evening, the Information and Broadcasting Ministry also requested the Indian Broadcasting Foundation (lBF), the News Broadcasters Association (NBA),the  Association of Regional Television Broadcasters of India (ARTBI), and the Advertising Standards Council of India (ASCI) to take steps in this direction.

The notice, which was put up under directions of joint secretary (Broadcasting) R Jaya, said the request was being made as immense public interest is involved.

The notice follows a meeting held between I and B secretary Sunil Arora and the secretary in the department of Empowerment of Persons with Disability (DoEPwD) to discuss advocacy and dissemination requirements for 'Accessible India Campaign' and other related issues .

Certain areas were highlighted in the meeting where support of MIB was solicited, such as awareness generation about the Accessible India Initiative, increased frequency of programmes for disabled persons in TV channels, showcasing films on achievements of disabled persons through public and private TV channels, and working towards captioning for the hearing impaired and audio facility for the sight impaired in programmes on TV channels in a time frame.

The note also said that the electronic media has played a crucial role in ensuring inclusiveness of all cilizens of the country in sharing information and entertainment.

The concerned bodies and channels have asked to give details of the achievements of such actions taken to the ministry.