ISLAMABAD: Minister for Information and Broadcasting Syed Shibli Faraz on Thursday informed the Senate that the government has prepared a comprehensive plan to revive Pakistan Television (PTV) and make it a financially viable institution.
The minister said that the state television channel had been witnessing decline for the last many years due to political inductions which had seriously damaged the running of affairs. However, he said the government was soon going to turn things around.
Speaking of some of the planned changes, he informed that studio equipment had not been replaced since 1974, due to financial constraints. “Purchased programmes were being telecast for many years rather than using the studios at different centres of PTV. But in-house production is being launched again to help the organisation to stand on its feet,” added.
Currently, there are three studios at different centres of PTV Corporation including, PTV News Centre Islamabad, PTV Home Peshawar and PTV Home Centre Quetta are non-functional due to shortage of equipment.
“Still, PTV studios are not producing only news; studios at Islamabad, Lahore, Karachi, Quetta and Peshawar are able to produce entertainment programmes for PTV Home, PTV National and PTV Bolan Channels,” he added.
Shibli added that PTV was in serious financial crunch since last few years due to which the payment of commutation had not been made to retired employees since March 2018, before which pensions were never delayed even for a day.
However, he said that now, utmost efforts were being made to arrange funds to clear the remaining outstanding commutations.
He said with the extensive efforts of management, the PTV Pension Fund Trust had been registered, new bank accounts had been opened and registration with FBR was under process after which the trust would become fully operational.
“In this regard, a case for grant of seed money had already been forwarded to the government,” he said.
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