ISLAMABAD – Minister for Information and Broadcasting Dr Firdous Ashiq Awan on Thursday informed Senate that new media policy was being formulated and efforts were under way to give it a legal cover before June this year. Replying to supplementary questions during the question hour, she said that it has been decided that members of both the parliamentary committees on information and broadcasting, representative of media, civil society and all stakeholders would be taken on board for their inputs in the new policy.
“We are trying to table a complete document in the parliament without any deficiencies or lapses to give it a legal cover before next budget”. She said the government would have to engage private channels into partnership to ensure media access to required information.To another question Dr Firdous informed the House that the private channels were not following code of conduct and stressed for empowerment of Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority (PEMRA).
She said that under the rules no television channel can exceed advertisements above 12 minute per hour but the code is being violated by electronic media. She said, “Every TV channel is bound to submit five per cent of their gross income into national exchequer but no payment was being made despite the fact that they were collecting this money from their clients”. She said that the non payment of this money was resulting in lose of billions of rupees to the national kitty.
The minister said that PRMRA is not playing an effective role of a regulator as it has been put under the purview of the ministry. Dr. Firdous Ashiq said that PEMRA had issued show-cause notices to TV channels for violating rules but they secured stay orders from the court of laws and cases were pending before the courts for the past three years.
