In an act of redressal, Information and Broadcasting Minister Sushma Swaraj, met a group of licencees for FM Radio Broadcasting Services here on Thursday. In a significant move, the Minister has extended the deadline of submitting the bank guarantee by 15 days for the licencees, from October 15 to October 30.Recently, private licencees from 40 cities had written a letter to the Minister complaining that there were discrepencies between their tender documents and licence agreements, for FM Radio. In their letter, they had therefore requested her to extend the deadline for submitting the bank guarantees till the discrepencies were resolved.
Mr RR Shah, CEO, Prasar Bharati, told eFE that Ms Swaraj reassured the licencees that their issues would be addressed on a case-by-case basis, on Thursday. So, the licencees will get enough time to sort out the grey areas, before depositing the bank guarantee.
Elaborating further on what transpired at the meeting between Ms Swaraj and the FM licencees, Mr Shah said, ``In certain cases, the clauses in the documents had to be explained to the licencees to put things in the right perspective,'' said Mr Shah. Among other things, the licence agreements imposed on the FM licensees several restrictions and obligations which were not envisaged in the tender.
For now, licencees for FM Radio have won a breather in terms of submitting the bank guarantee.
Copyright © 2000 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.