Budget: Rs 3,980 crore allocated for Ministry of Information and Broadcasting

PTI

New Delhi, February 1

Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Tuesday announced a Rs 3,980.77 crore outlay for the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting in the 2022-23 fiscal, a decrease of Rs 90 crore from last year.

The allocation to the government’s autonomous body Prasar Bharati has been reduced to Rs 2,555.29 crore from Rs 2,640.11 crore allotted to it in the last fiscal.

Among other autonomous bodies, the budget for only the Press Council of India was increased from Rs 20 crore in the last fiscal to Rs 27 crore this time.

The Films and Television Institute of India (FTII), Indian Institute of Mass Communication (IIMC), Children’s Film Society of India and the Satyajit Ray Film and Television Institute saw reductions in their budget allocation.

For the IIMC, the government has earmarked Rs 52 crore, down from Rs 65 crore allocated for 2021-22. The FTII’s budget was reduced from Rs 58.48 crore last year to Rs 55.39 crore this year.

In the budget, the allocation for broadcasting under the social services head has gone down from Rs 2,921.11 crore to Rs 2,839.29 crore. There was also a reduction in the budget for ‘information and publicity’ from Rs 971.26 crore to Rs 942.04 crore.

‘Information and publicity’ covers establishment expenditure of media units in the country like the Bureau of Outreach and Communication, Press Information Bureau, Publications Division, New Media Wing, Registrar of Newspapers for India (RNI), Films Division, National Film Archive of India, Electronic Media Monitoring Centre and others.

Information and Broadcasting Minister Anurag Thakur hailed the budget as “beneficial”, saying it was a blueprint to fulfil hopes and aspirations of a new India in the 100th year of its Independence.

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