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Keeping in view the expenses to be incurred by the public service broadcaster for the forthcoming Commonwealth Games, the grant-in-aid to Prasar Bharati is a substantial Rs 16.36 billion for 2009-10.

The interim Union budget, presented today by Pranab Mukherjee who is holding the Finance portfolio during the recovery of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, shows an increase over the revised estimates for 2008-09 to Rs 12.69 billion, as against the budgetary allocation of Rs 11.42 billion for that year.

While the allocations are for the entire financial year beginning from 1 April this year, Mukherjee has sought funds only for the first four months of the financial year. Thus, the new government, expected to be in place by May, will present a full-fledged budget.

Perhaps as a consequence of the recent government announcement that it will continue to treat the 38,000-odd employees of the public service broadcaster as government servants, the Information and Broadcasting Ministry’s investment in Prasar Bharati has been reduced to Rs 2.56 billion in 2009-10 from the actual investment of Rs 2.62 billion in the budget for 2008-09. This is also substantially lower than the investment that had been proposed in the budget presented last year, which was Rs 3.26 billion.

While the grant-in-aid is to cover the gap in resources for meeting revenue expenditure, the investment is to finance the capital expenditure of the pubcaster.

Meanwhile, last year’s budget had also proposed a loan of Rs 3.26 billion for Prasar Bharati towards setting up an ‘International Broadcasting Centre’ and other facilities as a host broadcaster for the Commonwealth Games 2010 which was in addition to the grant-in-aid for 2008-09. Ministry sources told indiantelevision.com that the absence of mention of this loan in the budget documents only meant that there was no fresh loan but the commitment of last year would be honoured.

The total allocation for the I&B; Ministry this year is Rs 24.68 billion which is substantially higher than the budgetary allocation for 2008-09 which was Rs 19.10 billion and also higher than the revised estimates of Rs 20.25 billion.

Interestingly, there is no reference to the stimulus package for the media announced by Minister of state for I&B; Anand Sharma earlier this month, and the only package announced so far has been some relief on customs duty on newsprint, announced by the Finance Ministry.

Interestingly, the allocation to the Electronic Media Monitoring Centre has been raised from Rs 30 million to Rs 48 million. The EMMC was set up for monitoring television and radio channels for violation of programme and advertising codes.

The allocation for the film sector is Rs 956.7 million for 2009-10 as against Rs 848.5 million last year. In addition, there is a separate allocation of Rs 71.5 million for Certification of films.

Interestingly, the investment in the National Film Development Corporation (NFDC) has been reduced to just Rs 100,000, perhaps because the revised estimates that the Corporation meant to develop growth of good cinema spent only Rs 100,000 of the Rs 60 million invested in it in the budget for 2008-09.

The allocation for Press Information Services has been raised from Rs 358.5 million in last year’s budget to Rs 566.9 million. Sources said this increase is to meet the expenses to set up media pool services for the Commonwealth Games.

Interestingly, this also includes funds for a subsidy for running India’s news pool desk of non-aligned news agencies pool through the Press Trust of India despite the fact that the news pool has been non-existent for several years.

The allocation for adverting and visual publicity has been raised from Rs 743.6 million in the last budget to Rs 917.5 million for 2009-10 to meet the extra expenses following the increase in the advertising rates of the Directorate of Advertising and Visual Publicity. However, this is lower than the revised estimates of Rs 1014.9 million.

The lumpsum provision for projects and schemes of the Ministry for development in the north-eastern region and Sikkim has been increased from Rs 732.1 million in the revised estimates of 2008-09 to Rs 900.6 million in 2009-10.

(Source: Indiantelevision.com)