Post-Saradha,I038;B seeks equity details of all TV channels

It is perhaps for the first time that the ministry has asked all the channels to give such details after grant of licences,although individual channels have been told in the past to furnish this information after specific complaints. According to official data,there are about 825 private satellite television channels in India.

The immediate provocation for the Iamp;B missive seems to be the collapse of the Saradha Group,which ran a clutch of television channels Tara Muzik,Tara Newz and South Asia TV and newspapers such as Sakalbela in Bengali,Prabhat Varta in Hindi,Bengal Post and Seven Sisters Post in English and Kalom and Azad Hind in Urdu,which are all shut now. The group also ran a Bengali weekly magazine,Paroma.

It is suspected that changes were made in the shareholding pattern of some of these channels,launched or taken over by Saradha Printing and Publications Pvt Ltd,in 2011.