Financially burdened Prasar Bharati on Thursday sought government facilitation to help it receive assistance from the World Bank in its modernisation efforts.
"International Finance Corporation, the lending arm of the World Bank, is looking at investing in the broadcasting/ media sector. It is looking to assist broadcasting projects that have high development impact," Prasar Bharati CEO K S Sarma said in New Delhi.
He said the level of this assistance ranged between $10-100 million, adding "we should avail of it to help Prasar Bharati take up new development projects."
Saddled with a 45,000-strong manpower, the public broadcaster's annual expenditure stand at about Rs 2,000 crore (Rs 20 billion), of which it is able to meet only about 50 per cent.
Sarma said Prasar Bharati required funds to carry forward work in new technologies like broadband and DTH, apart from digitalisation process.
The public broadcaster has, of late, made inroads into the emerging sectors. In the sphere of DTH, a project which was inaugurated late last year, it boasts of over two million subscribers for its free-to-air platform.
Prasar Bharati has also been making efforts to sell its channels in foreign lands, where it targets the Indian diaspora.
Sarma said it has tied up with state-owned telecom companies, MTNL and BSNL, as a content provider of TV and radio channels.
"This service is initially free though later we plan to charge," he said.
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