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Govt may reconsider new broadcast bill
The government aims to support the content creator economy and will hold extensive consultations on the Broadcasting Services (Regulation) Bill, says Minister Vaishnaw.
The government wants the content creator economy to flourish and will hold extensive consultations with a diverse set of stakeholders on the Broadcasting Services (Regulation) Bill, information and broadcasting minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said on Monday.
“We are very flexible. We are very, very open-minded. We want this entire new medium to flourish. We want people to know things in a more interesting, better [manner]. We want more and more things to be known. Which means that we will have very, very extensive consultations,” Vaishnaw said.
The government’s aim, he said, is to encourage the creator economy. In March this year, the government had awarded National Creators Awards to influencers and content creators across twenty categories for their “impactful contributions to India’s digital landscape”.
“That is a new, growing sector that we encourage. Our intent is not to discourage it, our intent is to encourage it. Our intent is that this is giving more opportunities to express, opportunities to share, opportunities to create new IP [intellectual property]. That’s the way we look at it,” he said.
A senior government official indicated that if after the wide and extensive consultations, it is felt that a new bill is not required, a new bill will not be proposed. This person said that the bill will not be introduced in Parliament this year.
The latest version of the bill, first reported by HT on July 26, drew significant concerns over some of the provisions and how the consultation process was being carried out. The most controversial provisions ran the risk of tagging all online content creators as broadcasters, irrespective of the content they dealt with.
On August 12, the MIB, in a tweet had said that it would publish a fresh draft after detailed consultations and invited comments until October 15, hours after it had asked stakeholders to return watermarked physical copies of an updated version that was circulated between July 24 and 25.
The consultation process on the bill has been on since November 2023, when the first draft was uploaded by the ministry and the MIB is seeking comments on it until October 15.
The senior government official cited above said that the MIB had started working on the Broadcasting Bill when the Telegraph Act, 1885, was in the process of being replaced by the Telecommunications Act, to address any regulatory gaps that may have arisen. However, no regulatory gaps related to broadcasting were observed, this person said.
