ISLAMABAD - Federal Minister for Information and Broadcasting Marriyum Aurangzeb while responding to the questions of the members of National Assembly's Standing Committee on Information and Broadcasting here on Tuesday said that PTV Parliament channel would soon be launched for the live coverage of the National Assembly and Senate sessions as well as Standing Committees of both the Houses.

She said that since it had been said during the meeting whether the PTV was a State channel or of a particular party, it was incumbent upon her to clarify that the channel had shown live the sessions of the Parliament as well as the speeches of the Opposition members.

She said that members of all the political parties were invited to the current

affairs and other programmes of PTV and the data in that respect was available, which could be presented before the Committee if desired.

The Minister reiterating the need for restructuring PTV said that it was a State channel and was being run according to the policy approved by the Cabinet.

She said that PC-I for children channel was also ready.  Marriyum said that Ramazan transmission of PTV was very successful last year and this year also a good Ramazan transmission was envisaged.

She claimed that during Ramazan people preferred to watch PTV programmes as they were telecast after strict editorial review. The Minister stated that PTV AJK was covering AJK and Gilgit-Baltistan and it was also neutralising negative propaganda by India.  She informed the Committee that PTV Bolan, PTV National and PTV AJK were promoting local languages, culture, music and tourism.

Marriyum said that PTV had maintained its credibility in regard to news telecast and no news telecast by the channel had ever been contradicted, adding, that it had adopted a strict editorial policy to uphold the social, religious and cultural values.

She said that PTV Global was watched around the world and a monitoring team monitored all its programmes.

Referring to PTV World, she said that it was watched by all the foreigners in Islamabad and the government was proud of its telecasts.

She said that the channel was being run by a highly professional team of youth in an admirable manner.

Marriyum quashed the impression about decline in PTV's popularity stating that throughout the country the PTV channels were viewed by the majority of people. Bulk of the people preferred to watch entertainment programmes instead of current affair programmes during the peak hours, she added.

She told the Committee that according to PEMRA code of conduct all the private channels were bound to dedicate their 10 per cent transmission to the content pertaining to social issues.

The Minister said that Secretary Information Ahmed Nawaz Sukhera and his team had focused on bringing improvement in PTV because of which it was a better institution today in all respects.  She said that for the first time the producers and researchers sitting at the PTV headquarters had been sent to TV stations.

Marriyum said that PTV had between six to six thousand and a half employees and if the human resources of the organisation were fully utilised it would resolve all the issues, including pensions.

She told the Committee that PNCA was playing a sterling role in promoting culture and national heritage and had held a number of cultural festivals, which were participated by Turkey, Iran and other countries.

The Minister said that PTV Sports was also running successfully and it was telecasting programmes on hockey, football, squash, badminton, women games, sports nutrition and other sports activities. She said that the first ever film and cultural policy has been announced and several tax rebates have also been given on the import of film making equipment in the current budget.

She said that artist fund has also been established to restore self-respect of the artists.  She said that a mechanism was being evolved under which the artists would be able to draw money through ATM cards.