Delhi minister seeks documents of redevelopment colonies from Union Ministers
New Delhi, June 26: Delhi Environment Minister Imran Hussain on Tuesday wrote to Union Environment, Forest and Climate Change Minister Harsh Vardhan and Housing and Urban Affairs Minister Hardeep Singh Puri demanding various clearances for a number of Central government employees' colonies, for which thousands of trees were to be cut in the national capital.
The documents he sought were an Environment clearance dated November 27, 2017, and all the other environment clearances granted by the Union Environment, Forest and Climate Change Ministry for these General Pool Residential Accommodation (GPRA) colonies along with the Environment Impact Assessment reports for these projects.
"In order to fully understand/appreciate the concerns of all the stakeholders and to ensure equity and justice to all, it is requested that following documents may kindly be made available to the Environment and Forest Department, Government of NCT of Delhi for further examination," he wrote in the letter to Harsh Vardhan.
He also demanded a copy of the assessment by the Central Groundwater Authority with regard to the impact on groundwater and complete project report and the MoU between the government and the NBCC or any other party with respect to these projects.
In the letter to Puri, he also said that he was "made to understand that these projects are being taken up on behalf of Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs".
The Central government-run construction company NBCC will chop 16,500 trees in different areas of south Delhi including Sarojini Nagar and Nauroji Nagar to construct flats for Central government employees.
The issue of cutting of trees for the redevelopment of these colonies triggered a blame game between the Central and the Delhi government since last week with Harsh Vardhan claiming that the Delhi government was responsible for granting the permission for tree cutting in the non-forest areas while the Delhi government claimed that that the clearance for the same was issued by the Union Environment and Forest Ministry in November last year.
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Union government assumes full control over TV ratings, TRAI role curtailed: Report
New Delhi: The Union government has assumed full control over television audience measurement, removing the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) from oversight of the ratings system that underpins the country’s ₹36,000 crore television advertising market, according to a report published on Wednesday.
The report in Mint said the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting (MIB) now has exclusive authority over the framework governing how television ratings are measured and regulated. TRAI had been entrusted with oversight of TV ratings in 2012 during the UPA government’s tenure. TRAI is no longer mentioned in the relevant policy document, effectively vesting sole authority in the MIB.
The report said TRAI will continue to regulate other aspects of broadcasting, including channel pricing, advertising caps, interconnection and distribution norms, service quality and compliance standards. Its role in determining how ratings agencies track viewing behaviour has been withdrawn.
Television Rating Points (TRPs), which reflect viewership patterns, guide advertisers in deciding where to allocate spending across channels and time slots.
A government source quoted in the report said the ministry could modify TRAI’s decisions even when the regulator oversaw broadcasting.
A former CEO of Prasar Bharati told the newspaper that the MIB has historically regulated rating agencies through licensing and guidelines, and by holding them accountable under existing norms.
During its tenure overseeing ratings, TRAI had taken decisions affecting the broadcast sector, which included capping advertising time at 12 minutes per hour following complaints about excessive commercial breaks and it now remains unclear how these matters will be addressed under the revised arrangement.
Satya N. Gupta, former principal advisor at TRAI, was quoted as saying that merging regulatory functions with policy oversight and removing an independent regulator from the process was a retrograde step.
TRAI’s involvement in broadcasting had earlier attracted criticism as well. In 2012, its consultation paper on quantitative limits on television advertising was viewed by some as overlapping with the Advertising Standards Council of India’s code. Subsequent recommendations covering television audience measurement, ownership of news channels and issues such as paid news had also raised concerns among sections of the industry.
Television ratings have faced scrutiny in recent years, including during the controversy involving the Broadcast Audience Research Council (BARC), where officials of the ratings body were prosecuted over allegations of manipulation of viewership data.
