SGPC announces launch of its YouTube channel to air Gurbani from Golden Temple

GS Paul

Amritsar, July 14

The Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee (SGPC) has announced the launch of its YouTube channel to broadcast live ‘Gurbani’ from the Golden Temple. Meanwhile, modalities about telecasting Gurbani through a satellite channel are also being worked out by the Sikh body.

Christened as ‘Sachkhand Sri Harmandir Sahib, Sri Amritsar’, this YouTube channel with SGPC’s prominently displayed logo in bold letters in Punjabi, will be on air from July 24, a day after the lapse of 11-year-old contract with a private channel that had mired into controversy for being linked to the Badal family and allegedly having ‘exclusive’ rights for telecast of hymns.

For want of official formalities and technical knowhow to operate a full-fledged satellite channel, the SGPC has hired a New Delhi-based telecast firm for three months to telecast the Gurbani kirtan.

Out of the three firms, all New Delhi based, this firm emerged as the lowest bidder quoting Rs 12 lakh per month for providing all the infrastructure, technical set-up and manpower to broadcast an uninterrupted Gurbani.

The decision was taken by the SGPC executive in its meeting chaired by SGPC president Harjinder Singh Dhami.

The SGPC president emphasised that all rights of telecast and distribution of Gurbani content and copyright would be reserved with the SGPC. Other channels, web telecast firms on social media or any platform would be legally barred from restreaming, downloading and uploading the hymns in any form.

A three-month agreement has been signed with the firm as a stopgap arrangement, as the SGPC has already started exercise to launch its own satellite channel, he said.

“We have formed a five-member committee to follow it up. The panel would meet Minister of Information and Broadcasting Anurag Thakur and hand him over a letter seeking to launch a new satellite channel. Launching a satellite channel and procuring its expensive cameras and equipment would be a time-consuming process. Moreover, we do not have trained technical staff to operate the uninterrupted telecast that is to be made worldwide. A separate technical consultant, too, would have to be hired. It may take us around two-three months to have an efficient set-up. So, the executive had decided to hire the lowest bidding firm for the time being”, he said.

Dhami said that the SGPC has taken this move solely on the directions of Akal Takht. “Today the SGPC executive members would meet Akal Takht Jathedar Giani Raghbir Singh to officially intimate him about the launch of YouTube channel”, he said.