NEW DELHI, FEBRUARY 20 : While the Information & Broadcasting ministry may not have been able to push through the Broadcasting Bill and the Content Code, on Wednesday it issued guidelines to “define” the role of state and district monitoring committees for keeping a watch on private television channels’ content as they spread their wings to the remotest corners of the country.

Though the ministry had asked for setting up the committees in 2005, so far only Jammu & Kashmir has enforced the order due to lack of clarity.

The ministry has now clearly outlined the constitution and functions of the committees.

The decision was taken, says a ministry statement, after several complaints from local sections on alleged malpractices and violations by cable operators. “It had been noticed that the enforcement of the said Act in many parts of the country was not satisfactory either due to lack of clear understanding of the role of the district monitoring committees or a suitable mechanism to enforce the provisions of the Act,” said the ministry statement.

The ministry has said that a complaint cell, headed by a nodal officer at the district level, should be set up and wide publicity given to its role to watch out for any TV programme that may be “affecting public order or widespread resentment in any community”, check availability of free-to-air channels, ensure no pirated channels/programmes are aired and local news channels restrict themselves to airing local event-related information presented in an unbiased manner.

The committees, says the ministry’s new guidelines, can also call for footage of any programme/advertisement considered by them as violating the Cable Television Networks (Regulation) Act, 1995 and take action.

In case of a national/regional satellite channel, the committees should send their views across to the ministry for further action. The case in point is the Gujarat incident last year when a district magistrate had got a news channel blocked when it aired a sting operation on 2002 riots.

A committee is entitled also to take action against cable operators if they are not airing channels that are compulsorily to be broadcast or if their audio-visual quality is poor.

The ministry also clearly outlines the constitution of a state level committee which will be chaired by the Secretary, Information & Public Relations of the state and have as its members representatives of the state police DG, state secretaries social welfare development and women and child development besides representatives from a leading women-centric NGO in the state, academicians/psychologists/sociologists nominated by the chief secretary and director information of the state as member secretary.

A state-level committee will keep a watch on formation and performance of district level committees, take decisions of issues referred to it and recommend actions even against satellite channels to the ministry in case of violations.