Government is planning to bring amendments in the Press and Registration of Books (PRB) Act under which publications that do not submit annual statements for three consecutive years may face deregistration.
In the year 2014-15, only 23,394 publications out of over one lakh had submitted their annual returns to the Registrar for Newspapers in India (RNI).
Speaking at the release of 'Press in India' report, DG RNI S M Khan said that this figure is "too low".
Certain amendments, he said, have been proposed by RNI as per which if any newspaper is not able to file annual statements for three consecutive years, then deregistration process of that publication may be considered.
He said the I&B ministry has given its nod and even the Law Ministry has almost approved these proposed amendments.
While the number of annual statements received in RNI for the year 2014-15 was 23,394, only 19,755 statements had been received in 2013-14.
He also said that the RNI is working towards making online all the process related to registration of publications.
It is expected that in a couple of years, the entire process would become online, he said.
