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New Delhi, Sep 1 (UNI)The Jammu and Kashmir Media Federation, a body representing freelance television producers of the state, today voiced protest over the reported decision by Doordarshan to freeze award of commissioned programme for its Kashir Channel. The producers had taken hefty loans and paid advances for booking technical crew and equipment as the date of telecast was fixed, but now the freezing of award will be a great blow to them, and it will also defeat the very purpose of the Prime Minister's special DD package for the state, the Federation said here.

The process of empanelment of private producers was formulated and induced in July 2005 for producing programme in five categories of A,B, C, D and E. It was decided that the best one out of five will be selected on the basis of the assessment of the merits of the proposal and profile and performance of the producer in his presentation before a selection committee.

The committee approved programmes of 36 producers, including 22 from the state in A, B, C and D categories in phase-1 of the commissioning of programmes for Kashir Channel.

While the process of assessment was underway for category E, the selected producers were directed by Directorate General of Doordarshan to reach New Delhi and execute necessary agreements with DD so that their programmes were telecast from July 2006.

Now, the Federatio said, they have been given to understand that ther whole process has been frozen and no agreements are to be executed.

''This is unprecedented injustice with producers, particularly thoise from Jammu and Kashmir, who are being subjected to huge monetary losses and mental torture for no fault of theirs and consequently an important segment of Prime Minister's package for the state has been derailed,'' said the federation.

DD Kashir is the Kashmiri language satellite channel supported by Doordarshan studios in Srinagar, Jammu and Leh. Launched in 2003 DD Kashir has entertainment serials, infotainment programmes, news and current affairs, social programmes and film programmes as its major content. In terrestrial mode, DD Kashirs available to 96 per cent of the population of the valley.

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