New Prasar Bharati Board likely soon

Khurana was also non-committal when newspersons wanted to know what would be the fate of Gill and other members of the board after the lapse of the present Ordinance.

The Government had placed before the Lok Sabha last week the 1997 Ordinance as per the rules, but had not brought any Bill to replace it.

Under the existing rules, anyOrdinance issued when Parliament is not in session has to be brought before it as soon as it meets.

Further, the Government has to introduce a Bill and get it approved from Parliament to replace the Ordinance. If this Bill is not approved by Parliament within six months, the Ordinance stands lapsed. The Prasar Bharati Act seeks to give day-to-day functional autonomy to All India Radio and Doordarshan so as to free the electronic media from Governmental interference. Though enacted in 1990, the Act had not been brought into operation till 1997 when the Gujral Government activated it.

The then Information and Broadcasting Minister S Jaipal Reddy, through a Presidential Ordinance in July last year, amended the original Act. A 20-member MPs panel on the Prasar Bharati board was abolished.

Simultaneously, the upper age-limit for the member-executive of the board, earlier fixed at 62 years, was abolished.

The Minister also said that the Vajpayee Government had secured 275 and not 274 votes in its favour onthe confidence motion moved by it in the first session of the 12th Lok Sabha. SK Bwismuthiary, an Independent from Assam, had voted in favour of the motion. His vote was by mistake counted among those who had voted against the motion.

“This mistake was corrected later by the Lok Sabha Secretariat. The final result, therefore, is 275 in favour of the motion and 260 against. Leader of Opposition Sharad Pawar has been informed about it,” he said. Khurana said the next Parliament session was likely to be convened in the third or fourth week of May. “The general and railway budgets for 1998-99 will be presented during this session. The Government would also bring forward legislative measures, including the Lok Pal Bill and the legislation reserving 33 per cent seats for women," he said.