Imphal, May 07: Contrary to pursuance of the North East TV Producers' Association, Guwahati for entertaining only producers from the region to produce fiction and non-fiction television serials for broadcast in the NE Doordarshan channels the Directorate General DDK, New Delhi is alleged to have appointed producers beyond the region's periphery.

Such a move of the Directorate has only dampened the spirit of the NE TV Producers' Association that had also been persisting with proposal to produce and translate the serials in regional languages but the selection of producers from non-NE States has undermined the endeavour of Doordarshan Kendra to enable the North East region keep pace with other regions, said a source.

With an objective of facilitating the region compete with the rest of the country, only NE producers were allowed to produce commissioned programme in regional languages since the last many years but the recent selection of producers from other regions is likely nullify the objective, it observed.

Moreover, the source revealed, that the DDK Directorate has cancelled allotment of commissioned programme to the NE producers for broadcast in regional channels with the exception of Guwahati and Dibrugarh kendras with effect from the current year.

At the Directorate's insistence, production of commissioned programmes are allowed only under the banner of Guwahati-based Programme Production Centre (PPC), North East which also include production of fiction serials in Hindi only with added criteria for producing nonfiction serials either in Hindi or English to which the NE programme producers had vociferously objected.

The source further disclosed of the fact that inspite of persistence by the producers' body to allow serials in the regional languages they (producers) had nevertheless applied for slots even as uncertainties over the medium prevail.

From Manipur itself over 1000 applications were sent to the PPC to produce fiction as well as non-fiction serials out of which the Screening Committee approved eight applicants in the fiction category and 26 others for production of non fiction serials.

The applications were submitted with non-refundable fee of Rs 5000 each to the PPC.

As directed by the DDK authority to deposit 30 percent of the total production cost within March 31, the approved applicants duly complied with some even mortgaging properties to cough up the amount inspite of little information on which language to produce the programmes.

The source further conveyed that in the backdrop of the DDK insisting on production of serials in Hindi or English medium only and taking note of ban on Hindi songs in Manipur, the approved programme producers are making all out efforts to convince the DDK Directorate amend the rules and allow production of serials in Manipuri language.

According to some TV programme producers of Manipur, restriction on producing serials in the regional languages, including Manipuri medium is akin to not honouring inclusion of Manipuri Language in Eighth Schedule of the Indian Constitution and indirect insult to the people of the State.

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