NEW DELHI: Prasar Bharati has admitted that declining trend of terrestrial viewership, non-implementation of professional marketing division, aggressive competition, curtailment of advertisement budget of the erstwhile heavy spending by government ministries like Health and Agriculture etc., in Doordarshan had led to decline in the Internal and Extra Budgetary Resources (IEBR) of Prasar Bharati since 2014-15.

The Parliamentary Standing Committee for Information Technology which goes into issues relating to Information and Broadcasting appreciated steps being taken to reverse this trend which include monetization of resources, reorganization of commercial revenue divisions, change in content sourcing model, exploration of new revenue models from auction of slots on DTH platforms, and Digital Terrestrial Transmitters having multiple channel capacity etc.

The Committee recommended that Prasar Bharati should continue to explore avenues to augment revenue generation so that the public broadcaster achieves self-sustenance gradually and becomes less dependent on government support.

The Committee noted that during the year 2015-16, the I and B ministry had spent Rs 2827.75 crore under Non-Plan fund to meet salary and salary related expenses. Separately, Prasar Bharati allocates Rs 200 crore annually from its IEBR for Content Development Scheme as per the 12th Plan Scheme.

The Committee has been informed that Prasar Bharati spent Rs 295.60 crore in 2012-13, Rs 352.57 crore in 2013-14, Rs 465.34 crore in 2014-15 and Rs 531.78 crore in 2015-16 from IEBR on content development and dissemination. In Budget Estimates 2016-17, Rs 548.54 crore has been allocated out of IEBR for expenditure on content development and dissemination.