Direct-to-home lessons

New Delhi, June 29: The law ministry has backed the human resource development ministry’s plans to launch education channels of its own over the objections of the information and broadcasting ministry.

If a committee of secretaries set up to take the final decision now flashes the green light, the human resource development ministry can finally utilise the two GSAT-8 transponders it has rented at a huge fee.

The Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro) charges the ministry Rs 10 crore a year for the transponders, which have been idle since February last year. So, the ministry has already lost more than Rs 10 crore on them.

If the final nod arrives, about 50 education channels on various streams will go on air, a ministry official said.

The information and broadcasting ministry had been objecting to the proposal for the past two years, prompting the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) to set up the committee of secretaries to suggest a way out.

After three rounds of discussions, the committee advised the human resource development ministry to seek the law ministry’s views.

Now the law ministry has said the human resource development ministry is free to launch the channels without seeking no-objection certificates from the information and broadcasting ministry.

Under the information and broadcasting ministry’s direct-to-home policy, only a private company registered under the Companies Act can start a channel after obtaining a no-objection certificate from it.

But the law ministry says the human resource development ministry can follow the department of space’s Satcom policy, which considers education a special sector for which the government can launch channels of its own.

“We’ll inform the committee of secretaries about the law ministry’s views. The committee will take the final decision,” a senior human resource development ministry official said. The committee is expected to clear the launch of the channels.

Information and broadcasting ministry officials said their objections had the backing of telecom regulator Trai, which had said last December that no government agency should be allowed to launch television channels.

According to I&B ministry sources, the Supreme Court too had held, in Union of India versus Bengal Cricket Association 1995, that airwaves were public property and that the broadcasting media should not be under the government’s control.

Human resource development ministry officials, however, are ready to quote several apex court judgments to argue that education is a not-for-profit sector and the government is the appropriate agency to host education channels. They accuse the information and broadcasting ministry of favouring only commercial entities in the matter of operating television channels.

The human resource development ministry has started preparing audiotapes and videotapes of lectures and e-content on various courses for the proposed channels.

The I&B ministry charges Rs 1.5 crore for a no-objection certificate for the launch of an education channel. Of the 800-odd channels broadcast in India, only six are dedicated to education.