Pvt TV channels given time to produce sign-language news bulletins
Private television channels in the country have been given time till the end of the year to produce their own sign-language news bulletins and till then will continue to get free feed from Doordarshan for sign language news till the end of this year, Information and Broadcasting Minister Anurag Singh Thakur told the Lok Sabha today in a written reply to a question raised by Achyutananda Samanta of Biju Janata Dal (BJD).
The Minister replied that the Ministry has formulated and issued “Accessibility Standards for Television Programmes for Hearing Impaired” on 11.09.2019 to facilitate accessibility to TV programmes and News for persons with hearing impairment.
The formulated standards contain provisions to make the TV content, including news programmes, accessible by use of closed captioning, sign language interpretation and subtitling in a phased manner with graded targets.
In respect of the accessible news, the formulated standards prescribe that the private News broadcasters were given the option to start with daily sign language news bulletins, effective 16.09.2019, with facilitation from Doordarshan, to provide its sign language news bulletin free of cost to the private news broadcasters till 31.12.2020. However, in the light of the situation due to the COVID pandemic, this has been extended to December 31, 2021.
Thus the private news broadcasters have been given time to make in-house arrangements to develop their capacity to produce their sign language news bulletins.
Thakur stated in his reply that the implementation of the accessibility standards by the private TV channels is being monitored by the Ministry and monthly reports are generated. The reports are also being updated in the MIS portal developed by the Department of Empowerment of Persons with Disabilities (DEPwD) for the purpose.
The accessibility standards contain provisions for dissemination of information related to emergency services, public communications, public service messages, announcements etc. It is prescribed that for the hearing-impaired people, emergency information must be provided in formats accessible to such persons, namely open captioning/subtitling/sign language interpretation in appropriate forms of communication to leverage mainstream communication channels.