The government will launch a dedicated agri-television channel 'Kisan TV' this year to provide real-time information to farmers and earmarked Rs 100 crore in Budget 2014-15 for this purpose.
In his Budget speech today, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said: "Kisan TV, dedicated to the interests of agriculture and allied sector will be launched in the current financial year. I propose to set aside a sum of Rs 100 crore for this purpose".
The proposed channel 'Kisan TV' will disseminate real-time information to farmers regarding new farming techniques, water conservation and organic farming, he added.
Prasar Bharati is already working on finalising the plans to launch this new channel, that would be named "DD Kisan", at the earliest, Information and Broadcasting minister Prakash Javadekar had said earlier this month.
The BJP had before the 2014 General Elections declared that if voted to power, it would "explore setting up of regional Kisan TV channels".
Earlier, Prasar Bharati had been deliberating whether a single agriculture channel would suffice considering the different languages and requirements in various states and regions of the country.
Doordarshan and the All India Radio already have already been
running programmes related to agriculture and farming.
The Prasar Bharati Act lays down that the public broadcaster should pay special attention to fields of agriculture and rural development along with areas like education and spread of literacy, environment, health and family welfare and science and technology.
