The government has decided to collect fee from the private news channels showing parliament’s sessions courtesy Pakistan Television (PTV) Parliament, reported 24NewsHD TV channel.

Speaking at Senate’s Standing Committee on Information meeting on Monday, Federal Minister for Information and Broadcasting Fawad Chaudhry said the government wanted to run PTV Parliament like a commercial venture. “Now those channels using PTV Parliament’s feed will have to pay for that,” he said, and added, “How ironical that they charge from their viewers for their transmission, but do not pay us the fee!,” he remarked.

When the committee chairman asked that how these channels could cover the parliament’s sessions on their own when they were not allowed to, the minister replied allowing private channels was not his job.  

Suggesting the waiver of Rs35 charged from mosques’ administrations in electricity bills, Senator Mustafa Nawaz Khokhar, on the occasion, asked as to what was the logic behind charging the amount when there were no TV sets in mosques?

Fawad Chaudhry replied it is true there is no TV set inside a mosque, but one cannot rule out the possibility of TV sets inside prayer leaders’ hujras.   

State Minister Farrukh Habib said after all religious programmes were also shown on television.

Reporter: Zeeshan Bhatti